Opinion

ROOKE: Our Daughters Will Reap The Consequences Of Feminists Killing Boy Scouts

OPINION
Scout statue at the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving

(REUTERS/Tim Sharp)

Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
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While women are demanding the respect of “female-only spaces” free from the transgender cult, little is talked about how feminism opened the door to this harmful ideology by attacking men.

The Boy Scouts changed their name to Scouting America, signaling the latest step in their decline from what was once a premier club for young boys before feminism dug its claws in. The cracks in the Boy Scout armor started in 1991 when the parents of Margot Goldstein, then Margo Mankes, sued the club for sex-based discrimination when their daughter was denied access to an all-boys sleep-away camp and kicked out of her pack.

The Mankes were longtime members of the Boy Scouts. Both parents were leaders, and their two older sons were scouts. One even rose to the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout. Despite apparently knowing the group’s bylaws, they signed their daughter up for their local Cub Scout Pack.

This move went unnoticed by the national organization until Goldstein was set to join other troops at a Boy Scout summer overnight camp. She was denied entry because it was a boys-only event. Her parents then sued the organization to allow her to join the camp, which would have made her the first girl to be admitted to the event. (ROOKE: Tom Brady’s Haters Expose One Of Feminism’s Worst Tropes)

“Keeping girls out of the Boy Scouts deprives them of the opportunity to get the companionship and the competition that they need in order to be able to prepare themselves for the future,” Mark Rubin, the family’s attorney, argued.

Goldstein was already a member of the Girl Scouts. However, she told the media that she felt “kind of bored” while at the girls-only club and wanted to be a part of an organization that her brothers had thrived in.

When the Boy Scouts decided in 2017 to open their doors to girls, Goldstein told TIME magazine it wasn’t enough. “It’s nice to see them making steps and progressing in a good direction,” she told the outlet. ” … but it’s still not the same as what I was fighting for.” Goldstein didn’t just want to be allowed to be part of a single-gender pack; she wanted to be allowed into the boys’ space.

“Our feeling is that the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts were specifically designed to meet the needs for young boys. And the needs for young boys are very different from young girls,” said Blake Lewis, a Dallas-based Boy Scouts spokesman, while defending the organization in 1991. (ROOKE: We Have One Shot To Save Female Sports, Or It’s All Over)

Englishman Sir Robert Baden-Powell ignited the Boy Scout movement in 1908 to instill morality and good citizenship among the younger generation. The organization was meant to foster Christian Western culture in young boys by teaching them to “First: Love and serve God. Second: Love and serve your neighbor,” as Baden-Powell wrote in “Scouting for Boys.”

“There is a vast reserve of loyal patriotism and Christian spirit lying dormant in our nation today, mainly because it sees no direct opportunity for expressing itself … In this joyous brotherhood, there is vast opportunity open to all … It gives every man his chance of service for his fellow-men and for God,” Baden-Powell wrote.

Feminism is the straight line from “shattering glass ceilings” of boys’ clubs to seeing a biological male in a dress in a female locker room.

Women should have opportunities that allow them to learn important skills and how to thrive via competition without being forced to include biological men in their organizations. And men deserve the same opportunities without being forced to include women. Both can be true at the same time.

However, liberal women capitalizing on the so-called female rights gained from the sexual revolution ruined this for everyone with their attack on masculinity.

There was already a space for girls with the wide availability of the Girl Scouts, but like Goldstein said, most girls found the curriculum boring. Still, the move was not to neuter a club meant to turn boys into capable men but to create an equal version of that for girls.

If they wanted to have a wilderness survival club, they should’ve remade the Girl Scouts into something other than the cookie-selling MLM it is today. But feminism isn’t a builder of cultures. It is designed to destroy tradition. (ROOKE: The Boys Will Be Alright, But What About Our Young Women?)

Men have experienced the destruction of their spaces, and the direct consequences are felt in the everyday attack on their inherent masculinity, which liberal women classify as toxic. Now, women are shocked that the march of feminism has taken them along, largely because they never thought a movement that supposedly supported women would pave the way for actual male toxicity to harm them.

But where were women when men’s spaces came under attack? In the cheering section, pushing to end them.

It seems very obvious to anyone who enjoys the freedom and safety of tradition that if men are attacked and told they aren’t allowed to acknowledge unique qualities, women will eventually feel the repercussions. America’s daughters are fighting for their right to change their clothes and compete in sports without the inclusion of biological males, and yet that same freedom was stripped from boys decades before with the praise and adoration of women.

In the end, the battle of the sexes became the greatest destroyer of our culture. The transgender cult has thrived in the absence of strong men. If we have any hope of fixing this travesty, it simply starts with allowing men the freedom to learn how to be keepers of society.