When I was younger, I joined the Boy Scouts, or more importantly, the Cub Scouts. I started when I was a tiger, then moved up by grade until I became a boy scout, then a scout First Class. It was a great run but eventually, I had to retire my handkerchief.

I earned my Fireman's Chit, Whittling Chit, and all five ribbons for the hundredth anniversary. I earned Webmaster's status and became patrol leader of the pink panthers, then the flaming waffles of coolness. I camped in tents and slept on rocks, army cots, and the ground with nothing but the sky above me. I learned how to survive without anything around, tie knots, which plants are poisonous, and how to treat rather large wounds and broken ankles. I made many fires, sometimes with nothing but a few branches, kindling, flint and steel.

It was all around amazing.

My sister, who looked up to her big brother, wanted to follow in my footsteps and joined the Girl Scouts when she was of age. Both organizations are reputable, but something happened recently:

The BSA is allowing girls to join their Cub Scout program, and more importantly, opening their doors to the older Boy Scouts program.

This is a big deal. It means that one organization will suffer membership loss, and the other will gain, but what does this move by the Boy Scouts mean?

Well, according to numerous reports, the Boy Scouts allowed girls to join and at some point, cross over the regular scouting and potentially earn their Eagle Scout status. It is a huge win for progression within an organization that does not usually progress with the times. Apparently, numerous families have requested that the organization open up to the opposite gender so their daughters can join.

This is where some of the initial arguments come to light.

Many people are accusing the Boy Scouts of allowing girls to join as their membership numbers are dwindling, as per a publicized letter written by GSA President Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, quoting the membership fall that was released by the Boy Scouts earlier that year. Others see this as an attack on sexual equality. The families that want their girls in the scouts want a better chance to get them into choice schools and universities, since an Eagle Scout is such a high honor.

To better understand, the GSA's Gold Award standards indicate that you have to:

"Choose and Issue" - pick a problem you see in your community that does not have any morals, and "demonstrate civic responsibility" by identifying it.

"Investigate" - find as much information about the issue as possible, even going as far as identifying international links.

"Get Help" - it's about cooperation with different people and advising a resolution.

"Create a Plan" - develop and lead the project to create "lasting change."

"Present Your Plan" - get feedback from your Girl Scout Council and refine your idea into something that you can do.

"Take Action" - act on your plan.

"Educate and Inspire" - share your experience and report the project results to the Girl Scout Council.

Reading the individual steps' information, it seems as if they step all-over each other. It doesn't read coherently nor intelligently. Using words like, "courage", it attempts to loosely glue together choice ideas the Girls Scouts stand for.

According to the Boy Scouts, their Eagle Scout requirements are as follows:

- Be active in your troop for at least six months as a Life Scout rank

- As a Life Scout, demonstrate Scout Spirit by living the Scout Oath and Scout Law. Using whatever deity or philosophy you live by, prove that you are living to your beliefs as well as the Scouts'.

- List people who would recommend you on the grounds of religion (but if you are atheist, leave blank), work, and education.

- Earn a total of twenty-one merit badges including First Aid, Communication, Personal Management, and Family Life, just to name a few.

- Be active or former in a position of responsibility or authority.

- Develop a community service plan and execute it.

- Have a conference with your scoutmaster.

- Go through a Board of Review, stating ambitions in life, and other information that could help solidify your status as a community leader.

First of all, there are many more requirements than just doing community service like the Girl Scouts. You need proof of numerous merit badges, be active in your troop and community, and go through numerous reviews. Instead of it dribbling all over the place like the Girl Scouts' Gold Award, it attempts to cover as many bases as possible.

When comparing the two, it makes sense that the Eagle Scout rank is seen better by universities and other institutions over the Girl Scouts award. I am not even mentioning Eagle Palms, which is an extension of the Eagle Scout rank.

People will still accuse the universities of neolithic sexual discrimination, but from a purely factual standpoint, it makes sense that the Boy Scouts' Eagle Scout rank is more widely recognized.

But there is still one more piece of agenda to show:

The Girl Scouts were founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912 and started off as a small gathering of girls that played sports and took part in a lot of outdoorsmanship. Because of the times, it spread like wildfire, and now it affects millions of girls in over ninety-two countries.

The first mention of a "scout" was when American businessman William D. Boyce got lost in the fog in England and a local boy found him and helped him through. The boy refused payment, claiming he was simply doing a good deed. The Boy Scouts were founded as a variant to the British Scouts in 1910. Scouting for younger boys started in 1920 when officials realized that the younger children deserved to join and learn the ways of Scouting. Since then, scouting is present in over one hundred countries and has an international population well-over the millions.

Both were founded to better the children of America, but there are clear differences between the two organizations.

The Boy Scouts are extremely conservationist, sticking to older values and were rather late to allowing boys of transgender and homosexual backgrounds.

Girl Scouts, on the other hand, have been more progressive, citing those issues a lot earlier than the Boy Scouts.

From my own experience, I've seen nothing and heard nothing but community service and greed from the Girl Scout organization. They are a great organization, yes, but my sister, my mother, who is the troop leader, friends from high school, and people I've talked to about this from college all agreed to this one prose:

It's all about the cookies.

The cookie? The best thing that comes out of the year. I love Thin Mints and Samoas, and Do-Si-Dos are absolutely divine when out backpacking. However, they all agree that the ranking and patches aren't feeling like anything, as the girls and their families are stressed to sell cookies for what? Lackluster rewards for the number of boxes sold and the harassment by local agents and/or councils. The Girl Scouts even sell nuts, which are even worse. They are extremely expensive, and the prior holds up.

The Boy Scouts sell popcorn every year, and from the sale, I remember the competition between boys, not the seller and troops. It was fun, especially the one year when one of the scouts won that bike and everyone patted him on the back and he was instantly the cool kid. Sound lame, right? Well, it wasn't then!

Now, the idea of girls joining the boys creates a lot of problems.

First, the amount of money necessary to renovate facilities, hire lawyers, create programs, etc. makes this move almost financially insane, let alone absolutely stupid. But the idea of opening up an organization with more intuitiveness to the opposite gender could teach the GSA how to operate.

And when I say operate, I am referring to this:

When my neighbor, Bette, was still living across the street, bless her heart, we would talk about science, politics, the arts, and history. She would tell me how life was when she was younger, picking blueberries from behind her house and having to hunt and eat local squirrels because of how poor her family was. When she joined the Girl Scouts, she told me of the camping she did, the trails she blazed, the institutions she fought, and the skills she learned. It sounded like the Girl Scouts were practically the Boy Scouts, but only for girls. She was troop leader for her daughter, and she noticed things changing, such as cookies becoming from the tar, the other troops getting patches faster than her's, and the lack of encouragement going forward from the local council. She got a hold of the new handbook, which she could not afford to get for all of her scouts, and according to her, it was, "watered-down". Whenever my sister would come over with her girl scout activities, Bette would mention that it isn't what it used to be. My sister was proud of her ambition, and so was I, but Bette was right.

I wrote this exposition not to attack the Girl Scouts, as there is always a need for male-centric and female-centric organizations to foster values, but with the current formation of the Girl Scouts, this is an attack on the organization.

In my opinion, I do not think this is to bring about more scouts as the priority, but to shed light on its sister-organization and its shortcomings. I feel the Girl Scouts should take up with their organization and rebuild it from the ground up to be what it used to be, and make sure it doesn't become a cookie business like it has.