Scouting is an activity many children participate in. You make friends, camp outdoors and sing silly songs. I was a scout when I was young, and while I made many friends and learned a lot through collecting badges, I also experienced some difficulties.

Let me make this clear, I was not a girl scout. I was an American Heritage Girl, which is a "developmental organization for girls ages 5 to 18 that embraces Christian values and encourages family involvement." Basically, it was started by a mom who didn't like that the Girl Scouts have children who weren't Christian, and so AHG was born. I adored my AHG troop, and I'm still friends with some of them today. I grew up in a Christian household, and it was like church but more running around in the mud and less sitting in a pew in a stuffy dress.

There was one thing that bugged me about AHG. The meetings were during the daytime and on weekends, but because my mom worked such a crazy schedule when I was a child, my dad took me to all these. This wasn't bad at first; my dad and I had a blast at daddy-daughter dances, and he even taught a woodworking workshop where we all got our woodworking badges. Then the mommy-daughter activities started to show up. My mother could never attended, and even though my dad would offer to take me, I was never allowed to have the badge, or the mommy daughter patch. I was excluded from so many events because my mom was busy, and it angered me. Why couldn't my dad come with me? It's not like my dad couldn't make puppets, or bake pies, or paint birdhouses. I remember feeling so left out when the other girls talked about how much fun they'd had with their mothers.

I think back on it now and it angers me more. Why couldn't you give a little girl a badge? She was there, willing to do the work, but because she brought a man with her, you sent her home?

Come to think of it, gendered scouts in it's own is ridiculous. Boy Scouts are revered as good citizens and survivalists. Boy Scouts who have received their Eagle Scout awards go far in life, some even say it's the defining factor that got them into college. What do Girl Scouts do? They hike and sell those high calorie cookies once a year that we're all addicted too.

Girls have tried to join the Boy Scouts before, saying that Girl Scouts was too sedated for them. They wanted to be doing real camping and hard stuff, but they've all been denied.

Especially in today's culture, gender is becoming blurred. Intersex people are more accepted, transgender and genderqueer people are celebrated. Why not have a gender neutral scouts that reflects this? According to the Boy Scouts website, scouting is safe for young boys. There is nothing in a young girl's biology that would be any different. If girls want to shoot rifles, design robots and rock climb up mountains, why don't we let them?

In a 2011 survey done by Gender and Society, a gender studies journal, they found that "Girl Scouts are generally discouraged from scientific pursuits while Boy Scouts are pushed away from artistic interests." We already know that an education in the arts and sciences makes a well rounded individual that is more intelligent and better prepared for life, so why are these age old sexist agendas still being pushed?

We are so adamant about telling little girls they can do anything, so why don't we establish a gender neutral scouts where they can? Restricting your children into groups based on their gender is not going to help them, and children who are not cisgender are excluded or harmed in the process. It's time to do away with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

(Also, I am aware that the BSA has launched venture scouts, in which boys and girls can participate. However, they do not receive the respect and honor that an Eagle Scout provides, and it's more of an add-on activity to the Boy Scouts)