On a similar note, my boyfriend and I were talking about our experiences in the scouts when we were younger (girl/boy scouts.) He began telling me that he learned wilderness survival as a scout and that they had spent an entire weekend backpacking around the Lake Tahoe in California, putting their wilderness survival skills to the test. I told him that I had never done anything like that in scouts. On the contrary, us girls didn't do anything but make arts and crafts, and bake. And make scrapbooks. And, I shit you not, once we went to a beauty academy for a tour and got our hair and nails done. Once we did Creek Week and cleaned up our local creek, but that was about as hardcore as it got. The one time we did go camping, we stayed in longhouse type things that had central air and heating. Way to rough it eh? Erg. Granted, the quality of the scouting experience depends on the scout leader, and my hometown is super conservative, so maybe girl scout troops elsewhere are better, but my experience in girl scouts was far different than my boyfriend's in boy scouts.

When I was in Girl Scouts, we did a lot of hiking and camping. We also did a lot of crafts, but if I remember they weren't significantly different from the crafts I remember my brother doing in Boy Scouts.

When I was nine, I would never have been able to sit still through a manicure or pedicure. Why are we training our girls to become Stepford wives?

I just received this article the other day from a friend of mine who's from this town - it's her local paper. I love the bit where the organizer tries to defend it by saying they were trying to be 'innovative', and the women's studies prof snarks about there being nothing innovative about gender stereotypes. Heheh. The part about this that really bothers me is not necessarily the activities, but the fact that they are separated by gender and then equivalents are not offered. A couple of camps I went on as a kid (like weekend trips I think) had a variety of programs, and they were all co-ed. I remember learning some survival stuff (making fires, tying cool knots, what to eat in the bush), sports (like kayaking), as well as some more creative stuff, like jewelry making - except for the boys and girls did it all together. The fact that the ONLY 'all-girls' camp is taking FIVE YEAR OLDS to get manicures is sick.

I'm from Halifax, and this story is just so bizarre to me. I grew up here and always attended co-ed camps run by the YMCA as a child. There were always a variety of activities offered and children chose for themselves which ones to participate in regardless of gender. I didn't know that the opposite was true in other parts of my province. Or is it that sex segregation becoming increasingly prevalent? Either way, crazy story that's close to home for me.

Wait, wait, you missed the best part of the article!

And while [the municipal warden who enforced the gender-segregation] sympathizes with Lydia's position, he said she is free to pursue her interests on her own.
"The place we're going fishing is five minutes from her house, so if there were that big a concern, her mother or her parents could have taken her," he said.
"I would have taken her myself but that wouldn't be the thing to do; I'd probably get accused of something."

YogiDanielle-

I know exactly what you mean! I was in girl scouts and our idea of "camping" was renting a cabin and making crafts. Don't get me wrong, we had a good time, but it was hardly "scouting". Boys slept in tents and learned how to start a real camp fire.

I understand if the camps were just trying to cater to what they thought kids want, but I don't see why a girl can come along hiking. Are they going to spend the whole time talking about nocturnal emissions or something? What makes it "boys only"? ...Naked hiking? Because that's a whole different problem. I wonder what would have happened if a boy wanted to go to the spa party...

I am from Halifax and unfortunately this doesn't surprise me at all. I saw an advertisement for a similar camp for young girls called Princess Camp. Why does society feel the need to gender segregate children? I was never the girly girly type and would totally be the girl that would rather go fishing than get my nails done. That is why I quit girl guides and joined sea cadets I needed the adventure not the craft time!

YogiDanielle, I think it really depends on your troop in Girl Scouts - my troop was heavily into survival/primitive camping and hiking and so on, much more so than crafts, especially when we got older (I also got to do a sex ed fair for my Gold Award project, so I may have been luckier than most in picking my troop). My brother actually ended up dropping out of Boy Scouts because his troop didn't do nearly as much 'fun stuff' (his words) as he got to do by tagging along with us - apparently the boys in our area did a lot more arts and crafts and not nearly as much chopping wood and building fires as we did :)

this kind of crap happens soooo often in nova scotia. I grew up in east hans.. ack. I had a little cousin who wasn't allowed to play softball one year because she's a girl and they only had a boys team. Her parents fought relly hard to get her on that team. I heard something about soccor recently too.

I think it does depend on your girl scout troop. My troop did a lot of camping, and I mean a lot. When we went to Hershey (DisneyWorld for poor midwest kids) our leaders wouldn't get us hotels, we had to break out the tents and camp nearby. We also got to backpack in the Allegheny Forest, and they made us learn how to do 1-match fires (kerosene is for losers like boy scouts :P ).

Anyways, back on topic, the guy running it sounds like an ass. "The place we're going fishing is five minutes from her house, so if there were that big a concern, her mother or her parents could have taken her," he said. Why can't the boys go fishing with their parents, what's the point of camp? "I have to go with the majority in my municipality. Out of 18,000 people, if 17,999 want something, I really can't cater to one person," he said. Well, if 18,000 people want to go camping, you can't take 17,999 and ignore the other person. Ass.

I showed this article to my 13-year-old daughter and then had trouble getting my computer back from her, as she read through other links, ads, etc. She then signed up to get your newsletter.

Oh and also, about your ad section in the margin that starts off with the text, "The Only Bush I Trust"? I had to explain the 'bush' reference. Yeah, that was fun. (Nothing more fun for a kid than making mom squirm. Earlier today she asked, "Mom, what's S and M?" after a tabloid news thing on Angelina Jolie, and I damn near spat out my coffee.)

Anyway, I'm glad to have Feministing as a resource for both of us (and someday, for my younger daughter too... 7 is probably a little young to start her on teh blogs...).

I read stuff like this and it makes me want to start a local branch of Rosie's Girls.

This is one of the reasons that the only youth club/camping organization I'd ever consider for my kids is Campfire. It used to be segregated (BlueBirds and BlueJays) when I was a kid, but integrated a couple of decades ago. It's also queer-friendly and doesn't discriminate based on religion (like Boy Scouts does.)

"Oh and also, about your ad section in the margin that starts off with the text, 'The Only Bush I Trust'? I had to explain the 'bush' reference. Yeah, that was fun. (Nothing more fun for a kid than making mom squirm. Earlier today she asked, 'Mom, what's S and M?' after a tabloid news thing on Angelina Jolie, and I damn near spat out my coffee.)"

Hey, it can go both ways!

Does she speak any language more fluently than you do? If not, might she do so later? English is my mom's second language and once she asked me what the difference between "erotica" and "pornography."

I was hoping you guys would cover this. I live in the next county over and I felt sick to my stomache when I heard this on the news. Especially because just the week before a simliar incident also happened here in Nova Scotia. A girl was not allowed to join a baseball team because the coach didn't want girls on the team! I couldn't believe it! Luckily, Sport Nova Scotia stepped in and forced the team to accept her. Unfortunately, the sexist jackass still coaches the team! Some role model!

I'm a fisheries biologist on the East Coast (USA). I'm thrilled to say that each year I've been in this field (just under a decade now), there are more and more women in the places I work, doing field work alongside me. I have brought my youngest sister to work with me on a few occasions to help with field work, and I promised my aunt when her kids are old enough to fish, i'll be there teaching them (since their dad doesn't). It's pathetic that they are being so strict on a gender rule for a one day camp. No one's sleeping over if that's a concern of the parents, and to say no one else took issue with it may only mean that other parents saw the gender rule and didn't think to question it, not neccesarily that their daughters didn't want to attend. How sad.

My girl scouts experience was one of flower arranging, mothers day gift making, pillow sewing, and on the one day we camped, making crafts out of the leaves and flowers we found in the woods. I'm envious of those girls who actually roughed it and learned survivalism.

"My girl scouts experience was one of flower arranging, mothers day gift making, pillow sewing, and on the one day we camped, making crafts out of the leaves and flowers we found in the woods. I'm envious of those girls who actually roughed it and learned survivalism."

Now I'm wondering if anyone in your scout troop did still learn some survivalism. You know, like when an adult didn't have enough proper training and learns the hard way that poison ivy is not for human consumption, I guess. I couldn't make that one up if I tried.

http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/berries2.htm

"Does poison ivy have berries?

"Yes, those round green things are the berries.

"Birds eat the berries without harm. NO, YOU CAN NOT EAT THE BERRIES!!! Geez, how dumb can you get? Somebody asked if people can eat them. Technically, there is not supposed to be any irritant in the berries, but why would you eat them?"

Proof that Canadians can be idiots too. :/

We never went fishing in my Girl Guide troupe, but we did a lot of survival stuff.

@Mina: the Guide camp I frequently went to had a big poison ivy patch as part of one of their nature walks, so that the leaders could point to it and say, "There. That's poison ivy. Now stay away from it!"

When I was in elementary school we always lined up for recess, lunch, etc., in boys' and girls' lines. Until 5th grade, when our teacher said, "In my class you can't have one line for girls and one for boys, because segregation is illegal." Hee!

Also, my dad took us camping and fishing - generally hiking at least a mile in to high mountain lakes, with no tents - until I was 12 and he broke his leg pretty bad and couldn't anymore. My sister and I being girls didn't seem to bother him much.

Priceless. Just ...fucking ...priceless.

Some things I just can't but a feminist spin on, and this is one of them.

I especially LOVED the "I'd taken her myself ...but I'd probably get accused of something."

Perhaps he was afraid to let her in the camp because she might entice the little boys into sinful, meaningless, pre-marital, sex?

Jesus fucking Christ.

I think what we need to focus on is it shouldn't be one or the other - women can fish AND have great nails (i mean, if they want, ya know.)...just look at Miss Vanessa's little red tips as she grips that bass.
(which may or may not be a bass, what do I know about fish identification. Nuthin')

My husband just told me that a woman in the community, who has a lot of outdoor experience, has volunteered to organize a camping trip for girls. It's really great that she would do that, but it's a shame that the town wouldn't step up and organize it. (Or let the the girl go to the boy's camp in the first place!)

I admit it's not quite the same thing, nor even in the same league of stupid, but even Dance magazine has pointed out that it's becoming harder to find ballet teachers willing to instruct boys. So it's not right to suggest that silliness is a one way street.

As for allowing males into Middle Eastern dance classes, ...fuh-geddit !!

Wow, I'm super surprised by all your Girl Scout stories. I was in Girl Scouts too when I was little, but I grew up in Japan (which by the way, will wreak havoc on your body issues if you actually aren't Japanese. I just recently figured out that just because my thighs touch, that doesn't mean I'm obese). We actually did camping in actual tents and all that.

I was in Camp Fire when I was younger; unlike the scouting organizations, it is co-ed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a nice balance of cooking, crafts, and real outdoor activities, as well as community service.

My Girl Scout troop was kind of like Troop Beverly Hills, so I can't really say much. It wasn't oppression, we were just all prissy suburbanites. We got lost on a marked trail and stayed in climate controlled cabins. We tried, though. For us, it was REALLY roughing it.