by Anna Mracek Dietrich with Andrea Songey-Neff

A slightly updated version of this piece has also been published on Ms. Magazine online.

Anna’s daughter, a first year Daisy Girl Scout, and son heading out to distribute flyers for contactless cookie sales in January 2021

This spring, the first class of young women to earn the rank of Eagle Scout has been making national news. It’s a major accomplishment for them, and at least on the surface, a major step for gender equality. The response however, reveals just how much pervasive sexism still exists in our society.

The Eagle Scout rank has been awarded under one name or another since 1911. Approximately 8% of Boy Scouts earn this highest rank. The Girl Scout Gold Award has existed under one name or another since 1916 and is earned by just over 5% of Girl Scouts (including U.S. Senator and Veteran Tammy Duckworth). Both require months if not years of commitment, leadership, and significant service to the community. Both are deserving of equal recognition and respect, but they don’t get it.

This was acknowledged in one of the most popular articles covering the announcement that girls would be allowed to earn Eagle Scout (from CNN, dated 12 October 2017):

“The rank of Eagle Scout is a prestigious and widely recognized achievement, one that can have long-term benefits in academic, professional and even military spheres. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Neil Armstrong and Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are just a few notable men who have attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

While there is a rough equivalent in the Girl Scouts – the Gold Award – the honor is not nearly as well-known as the Eagle Scout distinction.”

For those who aren’t familiar, the Girl Scout Gold Award requires a minimum of 80 hours of work by the Gold Award Candidate identifying an issue, investigating it thoroughly, getting help and building a team, creating and presenting a project plan, gathering feedback, taking action, and educating and inspiring others. Gold Award projects must be sustainable and have a connection to the community, either globally or nationally. The Gold Award Project may only be undertaken after the required prerequisites are completed in full and only when the Girl Scout is in High School.

Now that there is a new wave of media coverage on these first female Eagle Scouts, this lack of awareness of - and respect for - Girl Scouting and the Gold Award is on full display. As a woman in a male-dominated field who has studied societal gender issues at the graduate level and as a troop leader for a dozen ambitious and compassionate kindergarten Daisy Girl Scouts, this is infuriating; I want us to think about why.

My first thought as to why was to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Girl Scout organization and their PR team. So much energy goes into promoting the entrepreneurial efforts of the world’s largest girl run business, the Girl Scout Cookie Program (which is a severely misunderstood program that maybe will get another piece someday) it’s easy to blame them for not giving the Gold Award its due. While there’s always room for improvement - and I’ve already rolled up my sleeves to try to help make some of those improvements - anything GSUSA could do is being done on an uneven playing field.

The assumption that male is the default, normal, better gender is so pervasive in our society that it’s almost impossible to see without deliberately looking. But once you start looking, you can see it everywhere. Even the World Economic Forum published a piece with Yale News on this: “Why male is our default gender”. We see this popping up in how we gender inanimate objects, how modern medicine has developed and is often still practiced, and in the pervasive assumptions that all-female institutions must by definition be worse than all male ones.

The idea of binary genders, of which one is better, is hugely problematic, and not just in the discussion of Eagle Scout vs. Gold Award, but this is a conversation on which we can shine a light today, and we have an obligation to do so. The effort and accomplishment of young women is just as worthy of our respect as that of young men. The institutions that have been built to serve women and girls are just as valuable to society as those built to serve boys and men. IS there a problem with exclusive organizations? In many ways yes, but the bigger problem that we’re seeing manifested in the discussion of Scouting is that “feminine” isn’t respected as much as “masculine”. (And anything that doesn’t cleanly fit into one or the other isn’t often respected societally at all.) Sexist assumptions about what girls like vs what boys like manifests not only in our toy aisles with seas of pink and blue but also our assumptions about scouting, about which organization is “fluffy” and which is “real”, about which program and its accompanying years of hard work is more worthy of recognition. As one gentleman told a troop of girls: “Boy Scouts tie knots, Girl Scouts tie bows.”

For those wanting to argue that this default sexism doesn’t exist, I ask you: why is it so much more socially acceptable for women to wear pants (the historically male norm) than for men to wear dresses (the historically female norm)? Why is “like a girl” still an insult? Why would an award that is arguably harder to earn, and is held by an even smaller and more elite group of people, be so much less known than it’s rough male equivalent? Why can’t the more prestigious institution - whether it be a university, a club, or a scouting organization, be the female one?

The differences between the Girl Scout Program and the Boy Scout Program are reflected in the process to earn the highest awards. Much is made of the fact that Boy Scouts must earn certain merit badges and assume specific leadership roles within the Troop. Girl Scouts has no such requirement. Instead prior to even beginning her Gold Award Project, a Girl Scout must complete two Take Action Projects that address and sustainably solve the root cause of a problem in her community. While most Girl Scouts have the opportunity to lead others through a wide variety of leadership awards beginning in 4th grade, Junior Aide, Program Aide, Counselor in Training, Volunteer in Training, Girl Scouts recognizes leading others in a hierarchical structure is not a requirement to create sustainable change in the world.

Girl Scouts also recognizes that Outdoor skills are not a requirement for the type of sustainable change earned through the Girl Scout Gold award. Despite the fact outdoor skills and camping badges are available to Girl Scouts beginning in Kindergarten, not every Girl Scout has the cultural or economic ability to camp. In fact, New York’s Girl Scout Troop 6000 is composed entirely of girls experiencing homelessness. The Girl Scouts Beyond Bars is a program designed to serve and connect girls with their incarcerated mothers through Girl Scouting. There is little doubt that these Girl Scouts could share survival skills that would impress even the most ardent camper. Girl Scouts makes sure these girls - and so many others - are included in the Sisterhood of potential Gold Award Girl Scouts.

The range of Girl Scout Gold Award projects and recipients is correspondingly diverse and impressive. The 2020 National Gold Award Class includes young women such as Kiara who is addressing food deserts in her community, Siya, who is working to improve access to dental care, Alex, who launched a distracted driving prevention video series, and Natalie, who worked on robotics and designed a life-saving helipad.

Recognizing that there are many paths that result in young people of character that are committed to and capable of improving their communities and the world is essential. There is no one “right” path - and implying that Eagle Scout is somehow a better path or a better indication of that leadership potential than the Girl Scout Gold Award is default sexism. As a society, we owe our young women, young men - young people - more.

Anna is an engineer, entrepreneur, and first year Daisy Girl Scout Troop Leader in Petaluma, CA. Andrea is a Lifetime Girl Scout, the proud parent of a Gold Award Girl Scout, and a Troop Leader for more than 15 years who leads three Girl Scout Troops in Lodi, CA.