The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) caused a stir when it reversed its "no girls allowed" rule for the Boy Scouts last year. But it turns out, this isn't the first time the BSA has gone coed. We take a closer look at what happened, and one Sea Scout reflects on how gender affected her experience in the Scouts.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this episode made reference to new Boy Scout (now known as Scout BSA) troops including girls and boys. While there are now all-girl and all-boy Scout BSA troops which sometimes participate in activities and events together, there are not currently coed troops.
Produced by Sarah Wyman, with Charlie Herman and Julia Press.
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Transcript
Note: This transcript may contain errors.
CHARLIE HERMAN: Teenage boys haven't always existed in America. It used to be you stopped school and started working before you hit your teenage years. And when you got a job, you became an adult.
But in the early 1900s, that started to change. Urbanization, the rising middle class, and child labor laws were all making it so boys stayed in school longer… and before long, America had its first generation of teenage boys. Young men who didn't yet know how to be men.
Into this emptiness of adolescence… enter: the Boy Scouts.
BSA VIDEO: Today, the Boy Scout manual is the handbook for democratic youth the world over. More than 10 million copies have already been sold.
CH: In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America took up the mantle of raising American boys. And by the end of the century, it had churned out millions of them.
CUB SCOUT VIDEO: I, Timothy Martin, promise to do my best to do my duties to God and my country.
BSA VIDEO: To keep myself physically strong,
BSA VIDEO:Mentally awake, and morally straight.
BSA VIDEO: [singing] On my honor, as a scout, I'll be loyal, brave…
CH: The Boy Scouts had become synonymous with young men coming of age in America.
BSA VIDEO: This is the sign of character. For 51 years, boy scouts have been making it, and in today's world more than ever, character counts!
BSA VIDEO: Clean in body… clean in mind… always helpful… always kind...
CH: You had to be a lot of things to be a boy scout: Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
But the word "boy" was never in the scout oath or law. And now… it's not even in the name of the "boy" scouts.
That's because earlier this year, it changed its name to Scouts BSA. And for the first time ever, girls were allowed to become official members.
For a lot of Americans, this was a shock.
FOX AND FRIENDS: So some say, hey, what's the big deal?
We heard some of that reaction on Fox and Friends...
FOX AND FRIENDS: There's this thing called the Girl Scouts that are going to suffer from that, and I think there's a reason why the curriculum's different. Do you?
Yeah, because this is a curriculum for boys and boys are different than girls…
CH: But what if I told you... this isn't the first time the Boy Scouts of America has let girls in?
From Business Insider, this is "
In 1971, the Boy Scouts of America made one of its branches co-ed for the first time. It wasn't the branch you've probably heard of—the Boy Scouts, but a different one... the Sea Scouts.
Since then, tens of thousands of young women have registered. Today, the story of one of them.
Stay with us.
ACT I
CH: One of our producers used to be a registered member of the Boy Scouts of America.
SARAH WYMAN: It's me! Sarah Wyman! Surprise! (laughs)
CH: Surprise! But actually no, I'm not surprised. I just have to say if anyone meets you or works with you, I think the motto "Be Prepared" pretty much sums you up.
SW: You know I take that as a huge compliment, Charlie.
CH: You should, you should.
SW: Efficiency is my passion!
CH: That is a huge compliment. Okay, so you're here to tell us a story about your experience in the boy scouts.
SW: Right. Because when I saw that the boy scouts was going co-ed and there was all this controversy and conversation about that online… I had some thoughts!
CH: What kind of thoughts?
SW: Well, mostly I knew I had something to say about it! I wanted to weigh in! Because the thing is, the Boy Scouts going co-ed isn't just some hair-raising hypothetical that we all have to come to terms with. It is a thing that has already happened and that girls have already experienced, and I'm one of them! So I can just tell you about what that was like for me.
CH: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the place to start — how is it that you were a Boy Scout?
SW: I thought you might have some questions about that.
CH: I do…
SW: So, here's how it works.
The Boy Scouts of America—which we call the BSA—is like a large parent organization that has several branches. And one of its branches is called the Boy Scouts.
CH: OK.
SW: The Boy Scouts is the one that we're now going to call 'Scouts BSA' because it's going co-ed.
CH: And the SCOUTS BSA… those are the kids that are in the brown uniforms, they go hiking and camping and merit badges and the scout law… that's the Boy Scouts.
SW: That's the Boy Scouts. And I was part of another branch -- the Sea Scouts.
[Tape of Ring Buoy]
SW: And fortunately for journalism, I had a habit of following my fellow sea scouts around with a video camera.
[Tape of Ring Buoy]
CH: Wow, so this is video of you and a bunch of teenagers throwing life preservers in a pool?
SW: We're practicing a man overboard drill.
CH: Is this the kind of stuff that you did in Sea Scouts?
SW: It's one of many things we did in the Sea Scouts. Actually, I think people would be surprised by how much like the Boy Scouts it is. It's just more boat-specific. So instead of going camping, we went on long sailing trips… where we learned how to sail boats and do stuff like tie knots.
[Tape from Koch Cup]
CH: But where did all these groups come from… the Sea Scouts, the Boy Scouts.
SW: You can think of all of them of like siblings. They come from the same family. And actually, that is literally true in this case. They were founded by a pair of brothers…
CH: Oh, interesting.
SW: Lord Baden-Powell and his brother Warington.
CH: That sounds very Downton Abbey. Very English.
SW: (laughs) The most English. They kickstarted the whole concept of scouting in England back in the early 1900s. And the Boy Scouts they founded was actually pretty different from what we know as the Boy Scouts in America today. Because their version was militaristic. The Boy Scouts was designed to feed boys into the British army, and the sea scouts, the navy.
CH: So then how did this concept come to the United States, and did that same philosophy carry through?
SW: So, Boy Scouts came to the United States in 1910. And from the very beginning, the founders wanted to do something different. The focus moved away from this kind of military funneling program to be much more values-driven. They were really committed to the idea of raising young boys who embodied these twelve adjectives that you can now read in the scout law.
CH: Obedient, cheerful, loyal, helpful, those values…
SW: You left out my favorite one… CLEAN…
CH: Of course.
SW: But yes, those values. And sea scouting got its start in the US two years after Boy Scouts, so in 1912.
CH: Has Sea Scouts always been co-ed?
SW: That started happening around 1968…
BSA AD: Be prepared! Are you ready to get involved? Be prepared! Are you ready to take the lead? Do you think you know what scouting's all about?
SW: The issue of gender actually started with a different problem: retention. In the late sixties, the BSA—so the parent organization—had been struggling to keep older boys in scouting. We're talking the 16, 17, and 18 year-olds…
CH: Right, because come on, it's the 1960s! There's a lot going on - I'm sure many teenage boys probably have a lot of better things to do than wear matching neckerchiefs and recite scout oaths and tie knots.
SW: Yeah, exactly. And the boy scouts of America really saw it as its responsibility to prevent teenage shenanigans.
BSA AD: A bunch of kids looking for action. So what's doing out on the street? Is this the way we ought to use our boy power? Think about it. America's manpower begins with boy power. Let's not waste it.
SW: The BSA wanted to encourage young men to become civic leaders and upstanding members of society, right!?
CH: Right.
SW: So, step one: the boy scouts had to become cool. The BSA started running these amazing advertisements like the one we just heard… and also this one:
BSA AD: When was the last time you went camping? Hiking out tramplin' through the woods, feeling like a champion. Check out the Boy Scouts, see what it's all about!
SW: According to a story the Associated Press ran in 1972, the Boy Scouts made the neckerchiefs an optional part of the uniform.
CH: Good call.
SW: Den mothers also got a new look, with… and I'm quoting verbatim here: "miniskirts and hot pants as official uniforms."
CH: Ok!
SW: And the boy scouts started teaching boys in the inner city how to treat rat bites as well as snake bites.
CH: Wow.
SW: But the BSA adopted another new strategy around this time that's more significant for our story. It started targeting older kids specifically. To keep them in the organization. And it did that by beefing up the branches that already catered to teenagers. Like the Sea Scouts.
BEN JORDAN: And back then they wondered, well, 16, 17, 18 year-olds, the trouble is that they want to spend time with girls.
SW: Ben Jordan has written a book about modern manhood and the Boy Scouts of America. And he says back in the '70s, teenagers were turned off by the word "boy" in the Boy Scouts.
BJ: They don't necessarily want a completely single-sex environment in scouting, and that and jobs and modern city life is why they're leaving scouting.
SW: As early as 1968, it started letting girls participate in the Sea Scouts. I reached out to the BSA to ask why this call at this moment, and they didn't answer that question. But Ben Jordan has a theory…
BJ: It may have been keeping boys in. Like, 'well, if we let them have these co-ed units, will less of them leave?' So there was probably some 'we might get girls, and we might keep more boys if some of the girls...'
SW: 'And we might attract some new boys!'
BJ: Right, right.
SW: In 1971, it became official. Girls could be registered members of the Sea Scouts. And by the 1990s, their numbers were growing.
CH: So, when this happened back in the '70s, was this as big a deal as it is today, when you hear people complaining about girls being able to participate in the Boy Scouts?
SW: So, I haven't found any evidence of angry op-eds flooding major newspapers. But the change was covered by a bunch of local outlets. BSA officials were quoted as saying that "the action taken nationally was in recognition of the chartered requirements to serve boys and young men," and that going co-ed would allow this branch to, "more effectively carry out its mandate to meet the needs and interests of today's youth."
CH: Wait… what does that mean?
SW: Well, in a nutshell, I think it means the BSA was selling this change primarily as a good thing for boys. Like, it's saying the Sea Scouts would do a better job of "meeting the needs and interests" of young men if girls could participate too. And that brings us back to the story of my Sea Scout ship.
CH: Your ship?
SW: That's what we call our "troops," or Sea Scout groups. And the ship I joined got its start around this time—in 1977. It was called Mariners, and it was founded by a high school math teacher named Jim Wehan.
JIM WEHAN: It had only been a few years since sea scouting had gone co-ed. And there were very few girls at that point. And the girls were mostly in all girl units.
SW: Did you decide that you would include women right off the bat?
JW: You know, I had both sons and daughters, and when I found out that you could have a co-ed ship, I said 'well yeah, we're gonna have a co-ed ship so my daughters can be involved.'
SW: Everyone I know calls Jim Wehan "Skip"... it's short for "skipper," and that's what we call the person who steers the ship.
And, Skip isn't just a retired math teacher. He's also a 100 ton master, which means that the Coast Guard is cool with him captaining really big passenger ships. And, even though he's now in his eighties, Skip can still beat everyone I know in an arm wrestling contest.
CH: He sounds really cool.
SW: He is. But the coolest thing about Skip is that even though he's this well-seasoned sailor with this really diverse skillset, he's a huge believer in teamwork. And that's why, wherever possible, he likes to put the kids in Mariners in charge of running their own ship.
JW: Now, you know, I have lots of constraints from other adults that keep an eye on me (laughs) and you know, sometimes I have to say 'now we're gonna do it this way,' but I've always tried... if the youth show they can handle the responsibility, to give them the responsibility.
SW: Every six months, we elected one of our peers to be "boatswain," which is what we called the highest-ranking person in the ship. And the boatswain was kind of like our CEO. They had to delegate and supervise and appoint lower-ranking leaders to make sure everything got done. And Skip had a reason for this.
JW: When you start as a 14 year old student, you're still a little boy or girl, and by the time you graduate, society, at least in many ways, says 'You're an adult. You're 18. You're an adult.' And that's a huge change. And I think in most cases, it doesn't work very well, but in our case, we really push that you may be 17 or 18, but you take care of those 13 and 14 year olds, and your whole purpose here is to pass on what you've learned to these younger people.
CH: That sounds like a lot of responsibility. And then on top of it, your "ship," your "troop," was also co-ed.
SW: Yes, about a quarter of us were girls. And, to be clear, some Sea Scout ships are actually all-male or all-female. But ours wasn't. So the boys and the girls were all mixed together, doing all the scout activities we did in groups.
CH: And what was that like? Did that pose any problems?
SW: I think if you'd asked me this question like seven years ago, when I was still in Mariners, I probably would have told you that gender was not a big deal.
But since the Boy Scouts announced that it was going to go co-ed, I've been revisiting a lot of old videos I made while I was in Sea Scouts, and one year in particular—my last year in the program. And reliving that experience again now, has made my perspective on gender evolve. I do think it affected my experience, just not in the way people think.
CH: That story, after the break.
ACT II
CH: We're back, and with me is producer Sarah Wyman. So, Sarah, when I think about the Boy Scout these days, the first thing that comes to mind is all the issues they've had in recent years.
SW: And you're not alone. The Boy Scouts has always been crystal clear on how it defines "manhood." And, for the first century of its existence, that definition was really narrow:
BSA AD: Are you man enough to tackle a mountain? Man enough to ride a warring rapid? Man enough to hike 20 miles, catch your own dinner, then sleep in the wild? These boys are...
SW: Also, until very recently, the BSA had a ban on gay and trans youth and scout leaders. And this year, we learned that child molestation allegations within the Boy Scouts are even more widespread than we knew.
CH: So why, with all this controversy swirling around it, would the BSA choose to add another hot button issue into the mix by going co-ed?
SW: Well, to start with, this was a unanimous decision by the board of directors. So, at least like on that internal leadership level, this was not divisive at all.
Officially, the BSA has said it made this decision because families have been asking it to for a really long time. Like, just logistically speaking, it's easier for parents if their sons and daughters are participating in the same after school programs… Like that's one less stop to make on the family carpool! Some critics have pointed out though that membership is on the decline, and they say that this might just be a ploy to get more kids registered.
But no matter how you look at it, I think it's important to note that around the world, scouts are already mostly co-ed. Like, there are around 200 official scout programs internationally, and only 13 of them boys-only. So in the US, boy scouts has been really been behind on this issue.
CH: But what about the Girl Scouts? I mean, why do girls have to be Boy Scouts specifically?
SW: I can only speak for myself here, but I gave the Girl Scouts a try, and I did not like it. We did crafts and sang songs and I have a vague memory of tie-dying tee shirts on a particularly exciting day. But I remember so clearly when the local Boy Scout troop came to recruit boys at my elementary school, all the stuff they were talking about sounded like so much fun. Sleeping in tents! Making s'mores! Climbing on tanks! Sign. Me. Up.
CH: But of course you couldn't sign up.
SW: No… And, look, I've heard from lots of other women who had a great experience in Birl Scouts. I also know the organization has changed since I was seven. But it's hard for me to imagine now being a scout in anything but a co-ed program. And that's the story I want to tell you right now. About what it's actually like to be a girl in the Boy Scouts of America. And how much it mattered.
MARINERS: Mariners, give me an 'M'...
SW: This video you're hearing is from my senior year of high school. My teammates and I are jumping out of the shallow end of a pool, using our arms and legs… creatively to spell out our team's name: MARINER Q.
MARINERS: What's that spell? Mariner Q!
SW: We'd all spent the past three days together living on a World War II aircraft carrier in Northern California. And, for those of you who are interested… sleeping quarters were separated by gender. Boys in one set of barracks, girls in another.
But those kinds of logistics were not that interesting to us. Because we were there to compete against Sea Scout ships from all around the country in 26 different events. Every event tested us on a skill we'd picked up in scouting.
AUSTIN: Some of the fun ones were sailing, swimming…
[sound of swimming event]
JACOB: Rope climbing.
[sound of rope climb event]
SW: These are some of my teammates. They're gonna help me tell you about competition.
JOSH: We did first aid... also an important one.
TIM: There's a uniform event which I always thought was ridiculous, but hey, they've got it! It's Boy Scouts, I guess.
SW: There were actually a lot of events with no practical applications. Like, one of my favorites was called scuttlebutt.
CH: Scuttlebutt?
SW: It's very complicated and involves like eight people, a ten foot tall tripod, and a fifty-five gallon barrel full of water….
CH: I think I need to see it.
SW: (laughs) You do. But all you really need to know is my senior year, my teammates and I strutted into competition on a mission. We wanted to achieve something that had never been done before. We wanted to win an award called Great Republic.
CH: Great Republic. What is a Great Republic?
SW: It was named after the largest wooden ship in the world, Charlie!
CH: Of course it was, of course it was.
SW: And if you google it, you will see it is a very fancy looking ship.
CH: Lots of masts… lots of sails…
SW: Exactly. And the Great Republic award was so hard to win that Skip, in his almost four decades of running Mariners, had never seen a team do it.
JW: When I heard the requirements, I thought, 'oh, this is important,' because you can basically make no mistakes.
SW: You have to finish all 26 events at competition to win the Great Republic Award.
DAVID: The first reason that's hard is because it's very difficult to actually get to every single event at a competition.
SW: Half of the events were spread out across different decks of the aircraft carrier. But to get to the other half, you had to walk along the waterfront to get to docks and a pool. And if that wasn't enough, you had to score "satisfactory" on all of them — we call that getting a sat.
JOSH: Which can be harder than it sounds because you get, one person that does one thing wrong and you get one unsat and then you're screwed.
DAVID: So, of the twelve people on your team, they would need to be able to go out there and never drop the ball. On thirty events in three days. While you're sleeping on an aircraft carrier.
AUSTIN: That is no easy feat. That is nothing short of a difficult task.
SW: When I first joined Mariners, our team didn't even make an effort to win Great Republic. We just went to competition and had a good time and didn't really worry about how well we did.
But by the time I was a senior, making up half the letter 'M' in that pool with my teammates, I wanted to win Great Republic so badly.
We'd gotten really close the previous two years, including on the team I'd led at competition, but both times, we missed the award by one event.
CH: I can tell it still sticks with you.
SW: (laughs) I still lose sleep over this! And so going into this last competition, it felt really important that we win. Because we were all about to graduate—from high school, and from the program.
AUSTIN: Yeah. That was literally the last chance, the last opportunity we had to make our mark on this program and you know, show up all the other teams (laughs).
JACOB: Basically it's like hitting "play" on a process that was inevitable with that group.
DAVID: I remember key players on the team being you, Sarah, and Liz.
SW: This is my friend David. He was the boatswain, or the team leader, for our last competition. And this is my friend Liz:
LIZ: So the elected leader was David, but… you, Sarah Wyman, and me, Liz Fletcher, had been the leaders of the teams the previous two seasons.
SW: The two seasons when we just barely missed the top award.
DAVID: And then I was serving as boatswain with all of the information and cheat codes that I got from watching you all succeed. And then you two had skills that in certain areas were just objectively more in tune than mine. We had like the people that we needed. If we didn't achieve it then, in my opinion it's unachievable.
SW: All weekend, Liz, David, and I passed the baton of leadership around as we competed. And things were looking good.
I barked out the commands when we did drill, or marched in formation.
SW: Forward, march! Left, column left, march!
Liz took the lead on Scuttlebutt.
LIZ: Stack 'em! Lift! Spread! Plant! Up, up, up, up, up!
SW: And David kept morale up. Kept our eyes on the prize.
[SOUND OF CHEERING]
As the weekend wore on, as things continued to go mostly according to plan, there was absolutely no room for error.
AUSTIN: So it's the end of competition. Or it's nearing the end of competition. We only have a couple of events left. And one of the events is radio.
SW: Austin was my partner on the radio event. And the way radio worked, you sent in your four best people to compete. Two teams of two.
AUSTIN: And when we went in to actually compete, I had freaked out.
SW: Here's what happened: Austin and I went into separate rooms, and the first thing I had to do was call him on the radio and tell him to switch to another frequency so I could read him a message.
AUSTIN: And you had said a specific channel to switch to. And I didn't hear it. I didn't get the message. And so I'm sitting there, full panic mode, you know, 'oh my gosh, if I don't switch to her specific channel, I can't hear her message, we're not gonna satisfy this event.'
SW: Meanwhile, David and Liz were in another room, doing the same event.
DAVID: So I remember getting out of the room, and I remember going like 'oh my gosh, we crushed it!' Like heck yeah! And I just remember seeing this look on Austin's face of like pure, like he saw a ghost or something.
AUSTIN: I am feeling so defeated. I'm so angry with myself…
DAVID: So I could tell something went horribly wrong. And he just like comes up to me and he's like 'that didn't go well.' And I was like... 'what?' Like that's the one event. And it only takes one to not get great republic.
LIZ: I remember like conversations like starting to happen and being like, 'okay wait, so what does this mean?'
CH: I can't believe it... after all of that, you miss Great Republic again?
SW: Well, we didn't know for sure yet. It was possible that radio didn't go as badly as Austin thought it did. Maybe, maybe we eked out a sat, or a satisfactory. Either way, the next day we'd find out for sure in a big ceremony. But it did not look good.
CH: Well, the results… after the break.
ACT III
CH: We're back with producer Sarah Wyman, who's taking us inside a co-ed version of the Boy Scouts of America.
SW: So the last thing that happened at competition, before we all went home, was the awards ceremony. That's where you found out how your team did. And it was always a really showy affair… with literal bells and whistles and this gigantic American flag that they draped behind the stage. We all had to wear our dress uniforms… so for the first time all weekend, after three days of living on an aircraft carrier, we were all showered and presentable in our fancy outfits. Shiny black shoes, silver belt buckles, and crisply creased white shirts with epaulets and patches sewn onto the sleeves.
JOSH: We line up, and we march out. And then the boatswains, they go up to the very front.
DAVID: And then the stage is in front of us.
LIZ: We're standing in formation. We have to like play it cool. We're in uniform standing in formation.
DAVID: And all I can think about is like did we sat radio?
AUSTIN: And so we're waiting... waiting... waiting... we're going up in the rankings of awards. And we didn't hear our name.
JOSH: It's like a good… you don't want to hear your name. Because you want to be in that top tier.
AUSTIN: And everybody's on edge, like, we're leaning over to each other, 'what's happening?' You know?
LIZ: Everyone having like a mini freakout in where they're standing.
AUSTIN: And then they announced that…
DAVID: 'For the first time in blah blah blah history…'
AUSTIN: 'One team has achieved everything that was required to get this covenant award.'
JACOB: There was a lot of yelling, I think.
AUSTIN: We went ballistic.
LIZ: [yells] Just like pure excitement from everyone.
SW: When Liz and I heard our team's name called, we started booking it the front. And there's a picture of this moment, of me and Liz colliding with David in front of the stage, arms wide open, beaming, red-faced, just absolutely thrilled that we did this. The three of us... did this together.
LIZ: Like I see how it felt from the picture that we took afterwards like we were so...proud. I remember everyone just being like, 'Oh my gosh. We did it.' Like this. It was kind of a cool thing. Like they're these are all our close friends, but you get to look at them and have like the respect of a teammate.
SW: When I look at that picture now, I still feel proud. But I also feel really impressed by what we accomplished. And, honestly, I'm impressed that we made it happen as a co-ed team.
CH: What do you mean by that?
SW: Okay, I'm going to throw a number at you—
CH: Okay.
SW: And I want you to give it a second to sink in, because I think it's really important.
CH: Okay, I'm buckling my seatbelt.
SW: I was in Mariners for four and a half years, and we cycled through nine different ship leaders. And here's the number we care about: Six of those leaders, including me, were women.
CH: Six out of nine. That's more than half.
SW: And remember, most of my teammates were boys! So I asked them about this. Whether they'd ever thought about the fact that so many women ran our ship. Whether that was distracting or emasculating for them.
AUSTIN: It's not something I thought about at all.
JOSH: It's weird to even be like talking about it in the sense of… it's weird because it's weird to even think about it as being an issue at all.
CONNER: I don't think that gender was an issue in my mind at all. Your team leader was your team leader and it didn't matter to me if it was David or you or Liz or anybody, you know, there were some leaders who were respected more and some who we respected less but it had nothing to do with that leader's gender.
CH: Ok, but what did the girls think about all of this?
SW: I asked them the same question. And, on the whole, we were more aware of gender. Like, my friend Jackie pointed out that when leaders assigned people to teams for competition..
JACKIE: There were like lady events and man events…
SW: The girls were always put on first aid, and Marlinspike, which involved sewing. But the physical events were stacked with boys… rope climbing, rowing, obstacle course...
JACKIE: I felt very pressured to perform highly in obstacle course.
LIZ: I was proud that I was like a woman who did this, because it was mostly a male event of like strength and stamina (laughs).
SW: We also all noticed the stereotypical teenage boy behavior that went on at Mariners. Like every once in a while, people would say stuff… like make comments about girls' bodies or crack sexist jokes… and I don't want to diminish the importance of that, but at the same time, I feel like as more girls were elected to run the program, that kind of behavior became an exception to the rule.
CH: But do you feel like you would have gotten more out of the program if you hadn't had to deal with some of that teenage boy behavior?
SW: I don't think so… no. Because I think having to deal with that at that age in a way that didn't isolate me from everyone else and was actually productive, I think that exercise ended up preparing me really well for the rest of my life. Like, my teammates—my male teammates at that age—taught me so much about how to be a leader as a woman.
CH: In what way?
SW: Well, there's one moment in particular that I still think about all the time. When I was boatswain, so when I was the leader running the program, I remember one practice where this group of about six boys on my team was really giving me a hard time. I don't think any of them had voted for me when I ran for the position, but I'd still gotten the most votes, so now they were stuck with me being in charge, and it was super clear that none of them were happy about it.
CH: Why not?
SW: Because I wasn't as much fun as the person I was running against! I wanted to win Great Republic! And we all knew that was going to take a lot of work.
CH: So they knew you were going to make them buckle down and get things done.
SW: Exactly. So, on this day that I'm talking about, I told them we were going to practice drill—marching in formation. And I started walking over to the drill pad, where we used to run exercises. Only when I got there… my team wasn't with me. About half of them had run away and hidden, like actual children.
CH: Oh my god.
SW: (laughs) And the worst part was I could hear them giggling, waiting for me to initiate some kind of game of hide and seek where they would run away while I'd chase after them like a border collie on the edge of a breakdown.
CH: Oh my god, what a waste of time.
SW: But I knew I couldn't do that. So instead, I sat down on the drill pad and I waited.
CH: How long did you have to wait?
SW: It felt like a really long time, but eventually, maybe after like thirty minutes, my teammates started creeping out from where they'd been hiding, and they came and sat down around me in a semi-circle. None of us said anything, we just sat there in total silence for another couple of minutes.
And I still knew in that moment that I couldn't yell at them, and it wasn't that I wanted to. It was more just that it felt awful in that moment they expected me to. That they thought how I would react in that situation was to get up and scream at them.
So, finally, I stood up, and in the calmest voice I could manage, I just told them how I felt. I told them that I also had better things to do on a Saturday, but that I had come to practice, with them, because I was under the impression that we were a team. And I told them that if they felt like I was forcing them to do something that they weren't interested in doing… like if they didn't want to win Great Republic, we didn't have to. So I gave them a choice. We could all go home, or we could practice drill.
And then, they all stood up, and they got in line. And I swear to god it was like I could hear a symphony in the background of that moment.
[SARAH CALLING DRILL]
CH: And why is this one moment so important for you… why do you still remember it so clearly all these years later?
SW: Because that's the moment I became the leader of that team. I had to earn it.
And I think the whole process of earning that team's respect and their support… I think that actually ended up being more empowering for me because there were boys on my team. After that, I had the confidence to lead all of my peers, the boys and the girls.
CH: Do you think those boys misbehaved and gave you a hard time because you were a girl?
SW: You know I asked them about that, and they said at the time they didn't think it had anything to do with gender. They said it was because they didn't see me as "one of them." And we can go back and forth forever on whether or not that was the case—like whether or not my gender had to do with why they didn't connect with me...
CH: Why they weren't seeing you as one of them when they were a bunch of boys running away?
SW: Exactly. But after that happened, I spent another two years with those guys. Practicing with them, winning Great Republic with them. Going on trips with them and spitting over the side of the boat at the same time when we brushed our teeth.
And interacting that closely broke down a lot of barriers for us. Turns out, we had a lot in common. Like, we were all stressed about the same things: school and getting into college and the people we had crushes on. And we didn't forget that some of us were boys and some of us were girls. It just didn't define us.
TIM: Especially in high school, like everyone's going through a lot of the same shit and you don't really get that... I don't know... everyone kind of compares the experiences of men and women I feel like, in a contrasting way and I think that kind of sets you up to expect different things and I think working that closely with women in your age group kind of just makes you a person, you know makes you realize you're predominantly a person and then a man. That's at least that's the way that I felt.
SW: Moving forward, the boy scouts, or Scouts BSA as we're now calling that branch... It could look like the Sea Scouts. There are already all-male and all-female groups within Boy Scouts and, if they want to, they can participate in some activities and events together.
But, if the Sea Scouts are any indication of how this will pan out, the boys should get used to having girls around. Because these days, more than 70% of Sea Scout ships include women.
CH: So when it comes to the Boy Scouts, what advice do you have for those boys who may be doing activities now with girls?
SW: Well, mostly I'm just really excited for them! The boys and the girls. And I hope that they're able to work together and learn from each other the way we did. But I also know that that will only be possible for them if the adults in charge give them space to work out their differences.
[SOUND OF MARINERS]
Skip used to tell us this thing at Mariners. It's a line he borrowed from a movie called "White Squall" that became our ship's motto. And at meetings, he always shouts the first line.
MARINERS: Mariners, where we go one! We go all! Come on, you can do better than that! Where we go one! We go all!
SW: Where we go one, we go all. Because we're a team, and we're in this together.
CREDITS
CH: Sarah Wyman is a proud sea scout and also a producer here at Brought to you by...
If were you a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout — Do you have thoughts on the boy scouts going co-ed? Or if you're a parent, what do you think? Let us know in our Facebook group. Just search Brought to you by podcast.
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You can also email us at broughttoyouby@insider.com, or find us on Twitter. We're @btybpod
This episode was reported and produced by Sarah Wyman, with Julia Press and me, Charlie Herman. Sound design by Bill Moss, and music from Audio Network. Casey Holford and John DeLore composed our theme. Our editor is Carolyn Dubol. Sarah Wyman is our showrunner.
Special thanks to Jennifer Sigl, Michael Brown, Leslie Feyling, and Josh Gilliland.
Thanks also to the Mariners who spoke with us: David Cornella, Conner Elliott, Liz Fletcher, Josh Johnson, Austin Leeds, Jacob Morrison, Jackie Wetzel, and Tim Wetzel. And, of course, thanks to Jim "Skip" Wehan.
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