A recently reported on study coming from the University of Maryland's department of Sociology suggests our adorable Girl Scout cookie peddlers in vibrantly bedecked vests may be subject to an inculcation of harmful gender stereotypes. This may come to little surprise to many but let's look at the framework with which these stereotypes work their black magic.
The researcher, Kathleen Denny (contact info below), used the Boy and Girl Scouts' manuals as literary texts to be analyzed for meaning. The lasting images we actively hold in our minds are of, on one hand, Boy Scouts in the woods, with manuals and magnifying glasses, father figure towering overhead. On the other hand, Girl Scouts are notorious for their cookie stands that crop up in front of grocery stores a few times a year, always with a panel of girls behind them and a few moms to "lead" the sale. Just by breaking these images down, boys outdoors with tools and girls with baked goods and peers, we can see the manifestations of what these manuals are espousing.
Denny found that the manuals disproportionately oriented Girl Scouts with communal activities and artistic endeavors while Boy Scouts were presented with scientific and "self-sufficient" tasks.
Of particular interest is the badges earned for these tasks, emblematic of these stereotypes. Let's look at a comparison of equivocal badges for Girl and Boy Scouts:
Boys: Geologist Badge Girls: Rocks Rock Badge
Boys: Astronomer's Badge Girls: Sky Search Badge
Boys: Mechanic's Badge Girls: Car Care Badge
The trend here is that 1. Boy Scouts have descriptive, explicit and career orientated badge names while Girl Scouts have amusing interpretations of the standard Boy Scout badge, playing on feminist ideology centered on imagination, care giving and, well, girly stuff.
To emphasize my point, Girl Scouts also have the opportunity to earn a "Looking Your Best" badge which requires (group) activities such as the "Color Party" where the Scouts experiment with makeup and clothes to see what colors they look best in or the "Accessory Party" which, I hope, is self-explanatory. Other Girl Scout badges can include "Caring for Children" and "Sew Simple". I see no need to dissect the brazenly obvious messages behind these but I will say Denny found only one similar equivelant for Boy Scouts which was a “Fitness Badge” though I argue this should be a mainstay in both gendered ideals.
To look further into the media messages these associations feed into, I opened up the Boy Scout website and the Girl Scout website side by side. Below I note the salient images and motifs each respective site displays:
BSA (Boy Scouts of America)
Graphic Novel
Outdoors Activities (Mountain biking, white water kyaking, rock climbing and so on)
Independent activities
Contests
Honor
Girl Scouts
Cookies (of course)
Logo depicting multiple profiles of women with long hair
iPhone App
"realizing dreams"
"who we are" (emphasis mine)
literary emphasis (blogs, books, telling "your story")
historical timeline
When purusing the Girl Scout website, I noticed the "Take Move" initiative, where the goal, in conjunction with Kraft Foods I must note, is to end childhood obesity within one generation. Aside from being unrealistic and suspisciously sponsored, it furthers the concept that girls (future care givers) are responsible for the health of children. Suggesting this responsibility to girls while they are themselves children is a perpetuation of gender conventions that can be harmful to women today that have so many more expectations than to just be good cooks and care givers.
On the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) site, busy images of boys participating in outdoor activities of the extreme variety dominate. Nothing of the language orientated ideas, such as blogging and the iPhone app, appeared like they did on the Girl Scout site and while the BSA site boasted of a contest where the Scouts would be competing against one another (a very self-centered action), the Girl Scout site mentioned nothing but initiatives and campaigns to work together towards the greater good(s).
I’d advocate for a more egalitarian buffet of activities and tasks to earn badges, such as adding care giving roles to the Boy Scouts and more independent tasks to the Girl Scouts. Making child care into just care giving can open up opportunities for all Scouts to help our elderly, which far outnumber small children in need of care today, making it more likely either Scout would be in contact with the elderly on a day to day basis. In my perfect work, make up and accessories would have no place in such an extra-curricular but I hope you can recognize and appreciate the social depravity there.
Is this all bad? Not necessarily. Out of context, these initiatives and group activities foster important qualities as does healthy competition and independence. Equality between the two groups would be beneficial, however, in breaking down these gendered stereotypes we, apparently, fight to maintain despite the spacio-temporal women's rights movement that has extended across the globe and dates strongly back to the mid-twentieth century. Despite the idealized career women of the 80's and even Mattel's attempts to market "career" Barbies like the flight attendant and the librarian, the Girl Scout organization still encourages our young women to care about things like cookies, child care and makeup while the BSA encourages our young men to forge ahead along and conquer the wilderness, becoming the astronomers and geologists of tomorrow, notably important fields.
Meaning lies deep within everything we encounter including Girl Scout badges and manuals. Yes, the adult infrastructure along with the group leaders play a huge role in upholding these stereotypes (who do you think provides the makeup?) but in a maladaptive symbiotic relationship, the long standing cultural artifacts like the manuals and badge activities seem to have weathered the storm of women's rights and somehow came out a stable source of direction and influence among young girls (and by exclusion, boys by proxy).
Contact for Study: Kathleen Denny
University of Maryland, College Park
kdenny@socy.umd.edu
Sociologists for Women in Society
