Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told you?
Speaker 1: From housetop works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Molly slightly under the weather, which is why
Speaker 1: I might sound a little a little nasally. And this
Speaker 1: is Kristen and I am in the peak of health
Speaker 1: until my germ's get to her. But before that happens,
Speaker 1: christ and I have a quick question for you. All right, Shoot,
Speaker 1: were you ever a girl Scout? No, Molly, I was
Speaker 1: not a girl Scout Um, to be completely honest with you,
Speaker 1: I was actually in um sort of a fringe group,
Speaker 1: if you will, girl scout esque um. It was a
Speaker 1: like Christian organization. Instead of earning badges, we would memorize
Speaker 1: Bible verses and instead of selling cookies, we've played Tug
Speaker 1: of War. Doesn't really sound like the same thing at all, Christy,
Speaker 1: Now I had a blast, Molly. All right, So I
Speaker 1: was a girl Scout for many years. I loved it,
Speaker 1: which is why I was very surprised to see an
Speaker 1: article in the National Review, famed conservative publication UM by
Speaker 1: Katherine Jeane Lopez that basically accused me of as a
Speaker 1: Girl Scout being kind of a godless heathen, a lesbian,
Speaker 1: enduring a teen pregnancy, and or having an abortion. Well
Speaker 1: it's pretty surprising because the Girl Scouts seemed pretty squeaky clean.
Speaker 1: I mean, even more so than the Boy Scouts that
Speaker 1: came under a lot of scandal um in the past
Speaker 1: few years. Girl Scouts seemed to have kept a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty good image. You know, apparently Girl Scouts are feminist soldiers,
Speaker 1: feminist foot soldiers. Well maybe I don't know that Juliette
Speaker 1: Gordon Lowe, founder of the Girl Scouts, would really agree
Speaker 1: with that. What do you think, Molly, you're the Girl
Speaker 1: Scout expert here. You know, it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: communicate right now at the spirit of Julia Gornlowe, because
Speaker 1: even though my parents promised me we could go see
Speaker 1: her childhood home, we never did, but we went to
Speaker 1: Disney World instead. Well, um, speaking of her childhood at home,
Speaker 1: that means you must have been in Savannah, Georgia and Savannah, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and they told us the vacation was going to be
Speaker 1: in Savannah, but it was in Disney World instead. I
Speaker 1: think you're the only child in America would have been
Speaker 1: upset about going to Disneyland instead of Savannah. All I
Speaker 1: know is I had really built myself up to communicate
Speaker 1: with her childhood spirit, to see where I come from
Speaker 1: as a girl Scout, and it was all dashed to pieces.
Speaker 1: For it's a small world after all. But I do
Speaker 1: know this, even though I didn't get to take the tour. Um.
Speaker 1: Julie gardlow was raised in a well to do Southern
Speaker 1: American family. You know, she got a great education. She
Speaker 1: hit a bump in the road with a very unhappy marriage,
Speaker 1: and after the marriage, she you know, wanted to do
Speaker 1: something a little bit more meaningful with her life. And
Speaker 1: so she did, as all divorced women seemed to do
Speaker 1: these days. She went abroad and she went to she
Speaker 1: went to England. Yeah, and she met a guy there. Um.
Speaker 1: No romantic comedy or anything, but she met Sir Robert
Speaker 1: Baden Powell. Um. And he was the guy who had
Speaker 1: had the idea for the boy Scouts and the girl
Speaker 1: Guides which were in England. Yeah, and she, uh, Juliette
Speaker 1: Gordon Lowe like the concept so much she brought it
Speaker 1: back across the pond and started girl Scouts in uh
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve, right with eighteen girls in her hometown
Speaker 1: of Savannah, Georgia, and UH basically started just teaching girls
Speaker 1: how to develop leadership skills and like outdoor skills, building
Speaker 1: camp fires and the like. And it kind of sounds like,
Speaker 1: you know, those basic things of uh, you know, outdoor skills,
Speaker 1: socializing with other girls really hasn't changed that much and
Speaker 1: um and all the time since unless you're a reporter
Speaker 1: for the National Review, I guess. But let's let's talk
Speaker 1: more about what a girl scout it. Okay, there are
Speaker 1: more than fifty million Girl Scout alums, of which I
Speaker 1: am one, and then every year about two point seven
Speaker 1: million girls um and nearly women in adults who helped
Speaker 1: them participate in Girl Scouting activities. Really, so that's that's
Speaker 1: a pretty big, pretty big number. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: saw somewhere that it's something like Girl Scouts reaches out
Speaker 1: to about um ten percent of American girls between the
Speaker 1: ages of like five and seventeen ages to be a
Speaker 1: Girl Scout. But you know, if you've ever been a
Speaker 1: Girl Scout, you know that there are certain levels within
Speaker 1: girl Scouting that you can be if you are between
Speaker 1: five and six. You're a daisy scout, you know. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know before I read how girl Scouts work.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know about daisy scalps. Yeah, they're the
Speaker 1: cutest of the girls. And the petals instead of badges,
Speaker 1: it's all very flower oriented. Yeah, it's very sweet. Um.
Speaker 1: So if you're more familiar with like the girl Scout
Speaker 1: badge thing, they're just ordering earning pedals. Um. Like let's
Speaker 1: say they help like with the garden. You get a pedal.
Speaker 1: It's adorable, but you don't start actually getting uh. Then
Speaker 1: then you starting patches when you're a brownie. These are
Speaker 1: like things they give you to sort of, um, recognize
Speaker 1: that you tried something. They're called try. It's it's adorable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you get a patch just for try. You don't
Speaker 1: have to succeed, you just have to try. And that's
Speaker 1: for the brownies, right, Brownies. They're like six to age um.
Speaker 1: As you might imagine, they do wear brown um and
Speaker 1: they do things like learn a magic trick, complete a
Speaker 1: timeline of your life there. Try it's for like computer
Speaker 1: skills about learning about the earth. And they also do
Speaker 1: service projects like maybe they'll babysit like for a pta
Speaker 1: meeting or something. Okay, so let's say you're eight in
Speaker 1: a lot between eight and eleven. Then we're finally after
Speaker 1: Girl Scout badges and Kristen. This was my thing. I
Speaker 1: was anal retentive about earning badges. I did badges on
Speaker 1: my own time. I was always pushing the leader to
Speaker 1: do more badges and less service projects because I needed
Speaker 1: a visible sign of my triumphs. Did you ever wear
Speaker 1: your your Girl Scout vest when you weren't actually doing
Speaker 1: Girl Scout related activities? Yeah? I did. I have to
Speaker 1: say my proudest moment was probably when they were giving
Speaker 1: out badges and everyone else got like four and I
Speaker 1: got twenty. Wow. That's probably why I didn't have many
Speaker 1: friends when I was anyway, So these are the same
Speaker 1: sort of themes they're working on. They're working on things
Speaker 1: like computer skills, first aid, um, adventure sports, all sorts
Speaker 1: of great things to prepare you for life later on.
Speaker 1: I remember trying to earn some auto badge. Didn't really
Speaker 1: help me in in this age, but I did at
Speaker 1: one point learned how to change oil. Now. One thing
Speaker 1: that I do like about all the Girls Scouts that
Speaker 1: that if I had been a girl Scout. This is
Speaker 1: probably the route that I would have taken. I probably
Speaker 1: would have been a Juliette all right alone will an
Speaker 1: alone wolf. Juliet's named after Juliet Gordon Lowe, the founder.
Speaker 1: UM are girls who do Girls Scouts all on their own.
Speaker 1: They are a troop of one. You can just you know,
Speaker 1: participate in different activities, UM all on your own. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you don't live near a troop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and there were times when I want to
Speaker 1: sort of speed from my troop and take things into
Speaker 1: my own hands. UM. Anyway, if you're about my age,
Speaker 1: then you'll remember that once your past junior, you become
Speaker 1: a cadet, senior, or ambassador Girl Scout. They've renamed that
Speaker 1: UM a name I'm not wild about. It's now called
Speaker 1: Girl Scouts A love and to set teen. I would
Speaker 1: have preferred to have been a cadet, and I actually
Speaker 1: gave up girl skying after after I was a junior. Now,
Speaker 1: I gotta say one thing that I'm kind of impressed
Speaker 1: with with the Girl Scouts in general is that UM
Speaker 1: it has maintained popularity over the years. From everything that
Speaker 1: I've been able to find, all my sources tell me
Speaker 1: that the numbers have remained pretty consistent over all of
Speaker 1: these years, which I was kind of surprised to find out,
Speaker 1: because I thought that they would have had a pretty
Speaker 1: big dip in numbers, because you know, girls now are
Speaker 1: interested in you know, they're on their iPhones and watching
Speaker 1: reality TV. You know, I just you just don't. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I see that many girl scouts out anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: I wonder if maybe those numbers would show a dip
Speaker 1: at the same age for every girl when you do
Speaker 1: actually get a little bit more interested in that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff as opposed to going to chat to your
Speaker 1: your troop meetings. Yeah, I think it's traditionally, Uh, they
Speaker 1: have always kind of had a drop off around middle
Speaker 1: school when you as you sort of get interested more
Speaker 1: in boy is than making smores. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the actual girl scout life. You know, isn't it all
Speaker 1: just about camping? I mean it's it's pretty much the
Speaker 1: same types of things that Juliet Gordon Lowe was doing
Speaker 1: out in the woods of Savannah while original troops, yes
Speaker 1: and I didn't excuse me, spend quite a bit of
Speaker 1: time in the mountains of North Carolina at Girl Scout
Speaker 1: camp every summer. It was awesome. That is one thing
Speaker 1: that I always wanted to do. I was always jealous
Speaker 1: of my friends who went to girl Scout camp. Seemed
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. It was pretty awesome, so that I went
Speaker 1: to a resident camp, which is basically where you've got
Speaker 1: the established camp site. Mine actually had covered wagons which
Speaker 1: were awesome, um facilities for cooking and bathing and dining
Speaker 1: hall um. But other people, you know, we're a little
Speaker 1: bit more hardcore than than my troop was. You can actually,
Speaker 1: you know, just go straight out into the woods. Some
Speaker 1: girl Scouts do like trip camping, which is where you
Speaker 1: bike from campsite to campsite or canoe or horseback between
Speaker 1: those locations. That was a little bit more outside activity
Speaker 1: than I wanted. I could basically just handle this smoor
Speaker 1: aspect of the outside world as a girl Scout, but
Speaker 1: some girls do that, and camping is one of the
Speaker 1: used to be three season Now it's the five seas
Speaker 1: of Girl Scouts, which is uh with your crafts, camping, cooking,
Speaker 1: and now the two new editions computers and careers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as we were mentioned, you can get like try it
Speaker 1: some bades for all sorts of computer skills. There are
Speaker 1: lots of programs that get you to shadow someone who
Speaker 1: has the career you're interested in. And also we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about cookies, of course, because you can't talk
Speaker 1: about Girl Scouts without cookies. But I have this new
Speaker 1: theory that the Girl Scouts returning young girls into like
Speaker 1: this this class of capitalists, because they're all these ways
Speaker 1: to learn how to sell cookies better, like public relations, marketing. Um,
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of science into selling these cookies
Speaker 1: for these girls. Well, it all started out cookie sales
Speaker 1: in nineteen two. Well, the first the first girls Girl
Speaker 1: Scout cookies were sold in nineteen seventeen by local troupe.
Speaker 1: But then in nineteen twenty two, there is an article
Speaker 1: published in the official Girl Scout publication, The American Girl
Speaker 1: UM describing how you could make Girl Scout cookies for
Speaker 1: a profit, So you might be honest thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they they had recipes for um, six or seven dozen
Speaker 1: cookies that would only cost you, say, a quarter to make,
Speaker 1: and then you can sell them for um a quarter
Speaker 1: a dozen. So already you can see girl Scouts are smart.
Speaker 1: They know how to turn a profit. In nine four,
Speaker 1: a troop in Philadelphia became the first troop to sell
Speaker 1: cookies that have been baked by a commercial baker because,
Speaker 1: as we know, yeah, outsourcing, because if you have bought
Speaker 1: Girl Scout cookies in the past, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like twenty years or something, they have these really you
Speaker 1: know sweet boxes. They come in. They're all plastic wrapped,
Speaker 1: and you know those little little Girl Scouts as little
Speaker 1: Daisy Scouts weren't making those at home. No, they're I mean,
Speaker 1: when you see green, you know to run because you
Speaker 1: know they have thin mints left minus Samoa's purple box. Really,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm thin mint. I'm not gonna lie. UM. I
Speaker 1: liked though that during World War Two, instead of um,
Speaker 1: instead of selling cookies because of like all of the
Speaker 1: food shortages, they sold calendars. I think I did sell
Speaker 1: calendars one year. See. The thing about it was is
Speaker 1: eventually you had to have a fall fundraiser and a
Speaker 1: Spring fund raiser. Spring was always cookies and Fall was
Speaker 1: usually something lame like nuts or calendars that never sold
Speaker 1: as well as cookies. I think the fundraising was another
Speaker 1: thing that kept me out of Girl Scouts. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. Yeah, not a big fan. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of pressure, Girl Scout cookie sales are always kind
Speaker 1: of controversial because of uh, you know, some some mothers
Speaker 1: in particular might get a little over zealous with helping
Speaker 1: their children sell. And um, there's this great story about
Speaker 1: this one mother who set up a sale stand while
Speaker 1: her daughter was in school and ended up selling a
Speaker 1: record breaking seventeen thousand, three hundred and twenty three boxes
Speaker 1: of Girl Scout cookies. But maybe you're wondering where all
Speaker 1: the money goes, and I can tell you that basically
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the money stays within the local council
Speaker 1: and councils you know maybe oversee a few you um
Speaker 1: troops and their main three percent goes the bakery for
Speaker 1: all that hard work, um, seventy percent of the council
Speaker 1: receives each troop receives their funding for the year, and
Speaker 1: they get about twelve to seventeen percent of what they
Speaker 1: sold in the cookie sales. UM. So, and then they
Speaker 1: can use that money to have activities, to have snacks
Speaker 1: that might help send a girl to Girl Scout camp.
Speaker 1: So it really does. It's not just you know, girls
Speaker 1: out on the street. She'lling cookies for no reason. But well,
Speaker 1: it's good to know, Molly that the Girl Scout money
Speaker 1: is on the up and up that, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: we aren't all those cookies that we buy and eat
Speaker 1: aren't just a huge sham had the pockets of Girl
Speaker 1: Scout troop leaders. But that doesn't mean that the Girl
Speaker 1: Scouts have been completely controversy free. I mean, they've kept
Speaker 1: things pretty clean, but like you mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the podcast, with this National Review article, UM, they
Speaker 1: have gotten flak from more conservative parents for things that
Speaker 1: they've done right. I mean, basically, the reason that the
Speaker 1: Girl Scouts aren't as controversial as the Boy Scouts is
Speaker 1: because they have more of an open door policy, UM,
Speaker 1: where the Boy Scouts, you know, try and regulate who's
Speaker 1: coming in the door. UM. But that's where it leads
Speaker 1: to this perception by some conservatives, UM, that the organization
Speaker 1: is run by these radical and militant feminists and lesbians.
Speaker 1: According to this article. Now does that have something to
Speaker 1: do with, um, the alteration to the Girl's Scout oath. Um,
Speaker 1: there's one part and the Girl Scout oath may I
Speaker 1: quote on my honor, I will try to serve God
Speaker 1: in my country, and UM, the Girl Scouts came back
Speaker 1: pretty recently and said, you know, if you want to
Speaker 1: say God and your Girl Scout oath, you can or
Speaker 1: you know, we recognize that God or deities whatever are
Speaker 1: different to every every person and it's a very individual thing,
Speaker 1: so you can replace God with whatever. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: say whatever word you want there. So yeah, that's one
Speaker 1: part of it that's not gonna make conservatives that happy. UM.
Speaker 1: Another thing is just some of the programs they'll do UM.
Speaker 1: The nationale of the article talks about UM diet hills,
Speaker 1: UM eating disorders and how you know, when the Girl
Speaker 1: Scouts talk about this, it sort of puts idea is
Speaker 1: into girls heads. I guess, UM, you know you can
Speaker 1: work do these exercises as a as a team. That
Speaker 1: talked about how you can support the decision to pull
Speaker 1: a life support system from a dying relative, or high
Speaker 1: could support someone who's designed to end their pregnancy. So
Speaker 1: that gets into the whole abortion issue. Well, I know
Speaker 1: that there was also in two thousand four UM there
Speaker 1: were Girl Scout boycotts. I think specifically in Waco, Texas
Speaker 1: that I saw they had cookie boycotts because of UM
Speaker 1: controversy surrounding UM planned parenthood. Sponsoring. I think it was sex,
Speaker 1: said seminars that a certain troop was holding in. Parents
Speaker 1: were outraged thinking that the Girl Scouts was promoting, you know,
Speaker 1: premarital sex and abortion and things like that. So and
Speaker 1: also making the conservatives none too happy. Was a book
Speaker 1: that came out in called On My Honor Lesbians reflect
Speaker 1: on their Scouting Experience, which had an essay entitled all
Speaker 1: I really need to know about being a lesbian I
Speaker 1: learned at Girl Scout camp, and it talks about how
Speaker 1: all know this girl into camp and all her counselors
Speaker 1: were lesbians, and that, um, you know, there was an
Speaker 1: estimate in the book that one in three Girl Scouts
Speaker 1: paid professional staff for lesbians. So if you're a mom
Speaker 1: and maybe a small town conservative, Girl Scouts don't seems
Speaker 1: so squeaky clean. But at the same time, Molly, that
Speaker 1: also reflects, like you said, the non discrimination that's really
Speaker 1: embraced by the Girls Scouts. I was reading an article
Speaker 1: in the New York Times, I think that came out
Speaker 1: maybe in two thousand and six or two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: about how specifically for Muslim girls, Girl Scouts has been
Speaker 1: a really good way to kind of assimilate into new neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: particularly given you know, more of the kind of discriminatory
Speaker 1: climate against Muslims after the nine eleven attacks, and how it's, um,
Speaker 1: you know, really good outlet for these girls to feel
Speaker 1: accepted and like they're you know, a part of a community. So,
Speaker 1: you know, in my opinion, I think it's really I
Speaker 1: think it's really good that the Girls Scouts is so
Speaker 1: open and you know, advocating character and leadership skills. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, it's not like you know, they you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like they have a try at badge for
Speaker 1: being a lesbian, right right. The Girl Scouts really have
Speaker 1: devoted a lot of time and resources to molding their
Speaker 1: programs to the challenges that girls face today. For instance, um,
Speaker 1: they do a lot more programming with self esteem and
Speaker 1: things like cyber bullying and what to do if you
Speaker 1: find out, you know, if your friend is cutting yourself obviously,
Speaker 1: things that Julia Gordon Lowe probably was not talking about
Speaker 1: around the camp fire in nineteen twelve. And um, also
Speaker 1: one thing that amused me a little bit when you're
Speaker 1: talking about badges, uh, to to sort of see how
Speaker 1: how the programs have evolved for today's girl Scout. For instance,
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen, girls would earn mature and housekeeper badges,
Speaker 1: and in order to earn a matorn housekeeper badge, girl
Speaker 1: scout had to learn how to either use a vacuum
Speaker 1: cleaner or clean glass or this is my favorite, No.
Speaker 1: Three cuts of meat and the prices of each um.
Speaker 1: And thankfully today that has been replaced by the misfix
Speaker 1: It badge UM, in which girls demonstrate how to repair
Speaker 1: a leaking toilet or help with some painting. Um, do
Speaker 1: you maybe no less um fifties housekeeper type of chores?
Speaker 1: It seems like, um, you know they're really trying to
Speaker 1: just stay relevant. But you know one thing that's never changed, Kristen,
Speaker 1: What's that The Gold Award. The Gold Award, it's the
Speaker 1: highest pinnacle and girls Scouting. And I'm going to guess
Speaker 1: that you went for the Gold Award. I didn't and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's haunted me ever since. It's a huge
Speaker 1: regret that I did not get the Gold Award. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you're between the ages of fourteen and eighteen,
Speaker 1: you do this project. Basically, you keep a journal where
Speaker 1: you work for thirty hours and leadership role you do
Speaker 1: forty hours of career exploration, and then you choose a
Speaker 1: community service project that you design and carry out all
Speaker 1: on your own. You make a final report. I know,
Speaker 1: it's right up my alley thesis project. It is. And
Speaker 1: just because you do all this work doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: gonna get the Gold Award. What only five point five
Speaker 1: or sent of eligible Girl Scouts get it? Cut throat.
Speaker 1: It is cut throat, but you know we've got standard
Speaker 1: of excellence. You can't give everyone an oscar. It's true,
Speaker 1: It's true. You know the girls, the Girl Scouts does
Speaker 1: maintain high standards. Um. They've even got a a lobbying
Speaker 1: group in Congress advocating specifically for healthy living for girls,
Speaker 1: positive media images, safety, financial literacy. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: they really are working from the bottom up um to
Speaker 1: enhance girls girls lives in the United States. And it
Speaker 1: sounds like we're giving Girl Scouts the thumbs up at
Speaker 1: are no matter what the national of you would have
Speaker 1: us believe. Maybe it's just the cookies talking though, that's true.
Speaker 1: Sugar high, Well, Kristen, once you come down for your
Speaker 1: sugar high, why don't you hen over and learn more
Speaker 1: about how the Girl Scouts work. Because I know you
Speaker 1: weren't one, and I know it's very sad for you,
Speaker 1: all painful, but you can learn all about them at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you