February 25, 2009 • 19 mins
Girl Scouts and their cookies are as American as apple pie, but where did they come from? Discover the sweet -- and sometimes controversial -- story of the Girl Scouts in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told you?
From housetop works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly slightly under the weather, which is why
(00:20):
I might sound a little a little nasally. And this
is Kristen and I am in the peak of health
until my germ's get to her. But before that happens,
christ and I have a quick question for you. All right, Shoot,
were you ever a girl Scout? No, Molly, I was
not a girl Scout Um, to be completely honest with you,
(00:41):
I was actually in um sort of a fringe group,
if you will, girl scout esque um. It was a
like Christian organization. Instead of earning badges, we would memorize
Bible verses and instead of selling cookies, we've played Tug
of War. Doesn't really sound like the same thing at all, Christy,
(01:02):
Now I had a blast, Molly. All right, So I
was a girl Scout for many years. I loved it,
which is why I was very surprised to see an
article in the National Review, famed conservative publication UM by
Katherine Jeane Lopez that basically accused me of as a
Girl Scout being kind of a godless heathen, a lesbian,
(01:23):
enduring a teen pregnancy, and or having an abortion. Well
it's pretty surprising because the Girl Scouts seemed pretty squeaky clean.
I mean, even more so than the Boy Scouts that
came under a lot of scandal um in the past
few years. Girl Scouts seemed to have kept a pretty
pretty good image. You know, apparently Girl Scouts are feminist soldiers,
feminist foot soldiers. Well maybe I don't know that Juliette
(01:45):
Gordon Lowe, founder of the Girl Scouts, would really agree
with that. What do you think, Molly, you're the Girl
Scout expert here. You know, it's hard for me to
communicate right now at the spirit of Julia Gornlowe, because
even though my parents promised me we could go see
her childhood home, we never did, but we went to
Disney World instead. Well, um, speaking of her childhood at home,
that means you must have been in Savannah, Georgia and Savannah, Georgia,
(02:06):
and they told us the vacation was going to be
in Savannah, but it was in Disney World instead. I
think you're the only child in America would have been
upset about going to Disneyland instead of Savannah. All I
know is I had really built myself up to communicate
with her childhood spirit, to see where I come from
as a girl Scout, and it was all dashed to pieces.
For it's a small world after all. But I do
(02:27):
know this, even though I didn't get to take the tour. Um.
Julie gardlow was raised in a well to do Southern
American family. You know, she got a great education. She
hit a bump in the road with a very unhappy marriage,
and after the marriage, she you know, wanted to do
something a little bit more meaningful with her life. And
so she did, as all divorced women seemed to do
these days. She went abroad and she went to she
(02:48):
went to England. Yeah, and she met a guy there. Um.
No romantic comedy or anything, but she met Sir Robert
Baden Powell. Um. And he was the guy who had
had the idea for the boy Scouts and the girl
Guides which were in England. Yeah, and she, uh, Juliette
Gordon Lowe like the concept so much she brought it
back across the pond and started girl Scouts in uh
(03:10):
in nineteen twelve, right with eighteen girls in her hometown
of Savannah, Georgia, and UH basically started just teaching girls
how to develop leadership skills and like outdoor skills, building
camp fires and the like. And it kind of sounds like,
you know, those basic things of uh, you know, outdoor skills,
socializing with other girls really hasn't changed that much and
(03:32):
um and all the time since unless you're a reporter
for the National Review, I guess. But let's let's talk
more about what a girl scout it. Okay, there are
more than fifty million Girl Scout alums, of which I
am one, and then every year about two point seven
million girls um and nearly women in adults who helped
them participate in Girl Scouting activities. Really, so that's that's
a pretty big, pretty big number. Yeah, I think I
(03:53):
saw somewhere that it's something like Girl Scouts reaches out
to about um ten percent of American girls between the
ages of like five and seventeen ages to be a
Girl Scout. But you know, if you've ever been a
Girl Scout, you know that there are certain levels within
girl Scouting that you can be if you are between
(04:16):
five and six. You're a daisy scout, you know. And
I didn't know before I read how girl Scouts work.
I didn't even know about daisy scalps. Yeah, they're the
cutest of the girls. And the petals instead of badges,
it's all very flower oriented. Yeah, it's very sweet. Um.
So if you're more familiar with like the girl Scout
badge thing, they're just ordering earning pedals. Um. Like let's
(04:36):
say they help like with the garden. You get a pedal.
It's adorable, but you don't start actually getting uh. Then
then you starting patches when you're a brownie. These are
like things they give you to sort of, um, recognize
that you tried something. They're called try. It's it's adorable. Yeah,
so you get a patch just for try. You don't
have to succeed, you just have to try. And that's
(04:56):
for the brownies, right, Brownies. They're like six to age um.
As you might imagine, they do wear brown um and
they do things like learn a magic trick, complete a
timeline of your life there. Try it's for like computer
skills about learning about the earth. And they also do
service projects like maybe they'll babysit like for a pta
(05:17):
meeting or something. Okay, so let's say you're eight in
a lot between eight and eleven. Then we're finally after
Girl Scout badges and Kristen. This was my thing. I
was anal retentive about earning badges. I did badges on
my own time. I was always pushing the leader to
do more badges and less service projects because I needed
a visible sign of my triumphs. Did you ever wear
(05:38):
your your Girl Scout vest when you weren't actually doing
Girl Scout related activities? Yeah? I did. I have to
say my proudest moment was probably when they were giving
out badges and everyone else got like four and I
got twenty. Wow. That's probably why I didn't have many
friends when I was anyway, So these are the same
sort of themes they're working on. They're working on things
like computer skills, first aid, um, adventure sports, all sorts
(06:03):
of great things to prepare you for life later on.
I remember trying to earn some auto badge. Didn't really
help me in in this age, but I did at
one point learned how to change oil. Now. One thing
that I do like about all the Girls Scouts that
that if I had been a girl Scout. This is
probably the route that I would have taken. I probably
would have been a Juliette all right alone will an
alone wolf. Juliet's named after Juliet Gordon Lowe, the founder.
(06:27):
UM are girls who do Girls Scouts all on their own.
They are a troop of one. You can just you know,
participate in different activities, UM all on your own. Well,
you know, sometimes you don't live near a troop. Yeah,
I mean, and there were times when I want to
sort of speed from my troop and take things into
my own hands. UM. Anyway, if you're about my age,
(06:48):
then you'll remember that once your past junior, you become
a cadet, senior, or ambassador Girl Scout. They've renamed that
UM a name I'm not wild about. It's now called
Girl Scouts A love and to set teen. I would
have preferred to have been a cadet, and I actually
gave up girl skying after after I was a junior. Now,
I gotta say one thing that I'm kind of impressed
with with the Girl Scouts in general is that UM
(07:10):
it has maintained popularity over the years. From everything that
I've been able to find, all my sources tell me
that the numbers have remained pretty consistent over all of
these years, which I was kind of surprised to find out,
because I thought that they would have had a pretty
big dip in numbers, because you know, girls now are
(07:30):
interested in you know, they're on their iPhones and watching
reality TV. You know, I just you just don't. I
don't feel like I see that many girl scouts out anymore. Well,
I wonder if maybe those numbers would show a dip
at the same age for every girl when you do
actually get a little bit more interested in that sort
of stuff as opposed to going to chat to your
your troop meetings. Yeah, I think it's traditionally, Uh, they
(07:53):
have always kind of had a drop off around middle
school when you as you sort of get interested more
in boy is than making smores. So let's talk about
the actual girl scout life. You know, isn't it all
just about camping? I mean it's it's pretty much the
same types of things that Juliet Gordon Lowe was doing
out in the woods of Savannah while original troops, yes
and I didn't excuse me, spend quite a bit of
(08:14):
time in the mountains of North Carolina at Girl Scout
camp every summer. It was awesome. That is one thing
that I always wanted to do. I was always jealous
of my friends who went to girl Scout camp. Seemed
pretty awesome. It was pretty awesome, so that I went
to a resident camp, which is basically where you've got
the established camp site. Mine actually had covered wagons which
were awesome, um facilities for cooking and bathing and dining
(08:35):
hall um. But other people, you know, we're a little
bit more hardcore than than my troop was. You can actually,
you know, just go straight out into the woods. Some
girl Scouts do like trip camping, which is where you
bike from campsite to campsite or canoe or horseback between
those locations. That was a little bit more outside activity
than I wanted. I could basically just handle this smoor
aspect of the outside world as a girl Scout, but
(08:57):
some girls do that, and camping is one of the
used to be three season Now it's the five seas
of Girl Scouts, which is uh with your crafts, camping, cooking,
and now the two new editions computers and careers. Yeah,
as we were mentioned, you can get like try it
some bades for all sorts of computer skills. There are
lots of programs that get you to shadow someone who
(09:19):
has the career you're interested in. And also we're gonna
talk more about cookies, of course, because you can't talk
about Girl Scouts without cookies. But I have this new
theory that the Girl Scouts returning young girls into like
this this class of capitalists, because they're all these ways
to learn how to sell cookies better, like public relations, marketing. Um,
(09:40):
there's just a lot of science into selling these cookies
for these girls. Well, it all started out cookie sales
in nineteen two. Well, the first the first girls Girl
Scout cookies were sold in nineteen seventeen by local troupe.
But then in nineteen twenty two, there is an article
published in the official Girl Scout publication, The American Girl
UM describing how you could make Girl Scout cookies for
(10:04):
a profit, So you might be honest thing. Yeah, yeah,
they they had recipes for um, six or seven dozen
cookies that would only cost you, say, a quarter to make,
and then you can sell them for um a quarter
a dozen. So already you can see girl Scouts are smart.
They know how to turn a profit. In nine four,
(10:25):
a troop in Philadelphia became the first troop to sell
cookies that have been baked by a commercial baker because,
as we know, yeah, outsourcing, because if you have bought
Girl Scout cookies in the past, oh, I don't know,
like twenty years or something, they have these really you
know sweet boxes. They come in. They're all plastic wrapped,
and you know those little little Girl Scouts as little
(10:46):
Daisy Scouts weren't making those at home. No, they're I mean,
when you see green, you know to run because you
know they have thin mints left minus Samoa's purple box. Really,
I'm I'm thin mint. I'm not gonna lie. UM. I
liked though that during World War Two, instead of um,
instead of selling cookies because of like all of the
food shortages, they sold calendars. I think I did sell
(11:08):
calendars one year. See. The thing about it was is
eventually you had to have a fall fundraiser and a
Spring fund raiser. Spring was always cookies and Fall was
usually something lame like nuts or calendars that never sold
as well as cookies. I think the fundraising was another
thing that kept me out of Girl Scouts. It was
a lot of pressure. Yeah, not a big fan. Well,
speaking of pressure, Girl Scout cookie sales are always kind
of controversial because of uh, you know, some some mothers
(11:31):
in particular might get a little over zealous with helping
their children sell. And um, there's this great story about
this one mother who set up a sale stand while
her daughter was in school and ended up selling a
record breaking seventeen thousand, three hundred and twenty three boxes
of Girl Scout cookies. But maybe you're wondering where all
(11:52):
the money goes, and I can tell you that basically
seventy percent of the money stays within the local council
and councils you know maybe oversee a few you um
troops and their main three percent goes the bakery for
all that hard work, um, seventy percent of the council
receives each troop receives their funding for the year, and
they get about twelve to seventeen percent of what they
sold in the cookie sales. UM. So, and then they
(12:15):
can use that money to have activities, to have snacks
that might help send a girl to Girl Scout camp.
So it really does. It's not just you know, girls
out on the street. She'lling cookies for no reason. But well,
it's good to know, Molly that the Girl Scout money
is on the up and up that, UM, you know,
we aren't all those cookies that we buy and eat
aren't just a huge sham had the pockets of Girl
(12:35):
Scout troop leaders. But that doesn't mean that the Girl
Scouts have been completely controversy free. I mean, they've kept
things pretty clean, but like you mentioned at the beginning
of the podcast, with this National Review article, UM, they
have gotten flak from more conservative parents for things that
they've done right. I mean, basically, the reason that the
Girl Scouts aren't as controversial as the Boy Scouts is
(12:57):
because they have more of an open door policy, UM,
where the Boy Scouts, you know, try and regulate who's
coming in the door. UM. But that's where it leads
to this perception by some conservatives, UM, that the organization
is run by these radical and militant feminists and lesbians.
According to this article. Now does that have something to
do with, um, the alteration to the Girl's Scout oath. Um,
(13:18):
there's one part and the Girl Scout oath may I
quote on my honor, I will try to serve God
in my country, and UM, the Girl Scouts came back
pretty recently and said, you know, if you want to
say God and your Girl Scout oath, you can or
you know, we recognize that God or deities whatever are
different to every every person and it's a very individual thing,
(13:40):
so you can replace God with whatever. Yeah, you can
say whatever word you want there. So yeah, that's one
part of it that's not gonna make conservatives that happy. UM.
Another thing is just some of the programs they'll do UM.
The nationale of the article talks about UM diet hills,
UM eating disorders and how you know, when the Girl
Scouts talk about this, it sort of puts idea is
into girls heads. I guess, UM, you know you can
(14:03):
work do these exercises as a as a team. That
talked about how you can support the decision to pull
a life support system from a dying relative, or high
could support someone who's designed to end their pregnancy. So
that gets into the whole abortion issue. Well, I know
that there was also in two thousand four UM there
were Girl Scout boycotts. I think specifically in Waco, Texas
(14:24):
that I saw they had cookie boycotts because of UM
controversy surrounding UM planned parenthood. Sponsoring. I think it was sex,
said seminars that a certain troop was holding in. Parents
were outraged thinking that the Girl Scouts was promoting, you know,
premarital sex and abortion and things like that. So and
also making the conservatives none too happy. Was a book
(14:48):
that came out in called On My Honor Lesbians reflect
on their Scouting Experience, which had an essay entitled all
I really need to know about being a lesbian I
learned at Girl Scout camp, and it talks about how
all know this girl into camp and all her counselors
were lesbians, and that, um, you know, there was an
estimate in the book that one in three Girl Scouts
paid professional staff for lesbians. So if you're a mom
(15:09):
and maybe a small town conservative, Girl Scouts don't seems
so squeaky clean. But at the same time, Molly, that
also reflects, like you said, the non discrimination that's really
embraced by the Girls Scouts. I was reading an article
in the New York Times, I think that came out
maybe in two thousand and six or two thousand seven,
about how specifically for Muslim girls, Girl Scouts has been
(15:29):
a really good way to kind of assimilate into new neighborhoods,
particularly given you know, more of the kind of discriminatory
climate against Muslims after the nine eleven attacks, and how it's, um,
you know, really good outlet for these girls to feel
accepted and like they're you know, a part of a community. So,
you know, in my opinion, I think it's really I
(15:50):
think it's really good that the Girls Scouts is so
open and you know, advocating character and leadership skills. Oh,
I know, it's not like you know, they you know,
it's not like they have a try at badge for
being a lesbian, right right. The Girl Scouts really have
devoted a lot of time and resources to molding their
programs to the challenges that girls face today. For instance, um,
(16:11):
they do a lot more programming with self esteem and
things like cyber bullying and what to do if you
find out, you know, if your friend is cutting yourself obviously,
things that Julia Gordon Lowe probably was not talking about
around the camp fire in nineteen twelve. And um, also
one thing that amused me a little bit when you're
talking about badges, uh, to to sort of see how
(16:34):
how the programs have evolved for today's girl Scout. For instance,
in nineteen thirteen, girls would earn mature and housekeeper badges,
and in order to earn a matorn housekeeper badge, girl
scout had to learn how to either use a vacuum
cleaner or clean glass or this is my favorite, No.
(16:55):
Three cuts of meat and the prices of each um.
And thankfully today that has been replaced by the misfix
It badge UM, in which girls demonstrate how to repair
a leaking toilet or help with some painting. Um, do
you maybe no less um fifties housekeeper type of chores?
It seems like, um, you know they're really trying to
(17:15):
just stay relevant. But you know one thing that's never changed, Kristen,
What's that The Gold Award. The Gold Award, it's the
highest pinnacle and girls Scouting. And I'm going to guess
that you went for the Gold Award. I didn't and
it's it's it's haunted me ever since. It's a huge
regret that I did not get the Gold Award. Um.
But if you're between the ages of fourteen and eighteen,
(17:36):
you do this project. Basically, you keep a journal where
you work for thirty hours and leadership role you do
forty hours of career exploration, and then you choose a
community service project that you design and carry out all
on your own. You make a final report. I know,
it's right up my alley thesis project. It is. And
just because you do all this work doesn't mean you're
(17:56):
gonna get the Gold Award. What only five point five
or sent of eligible Girl Scouts get it? Cut throat.
It is cut throat, but you know we've got standard
of excellence. You can't give everyone an oscar. It's true,
It's true. You know the girls, the Girl Scouts does
maintain high standards. Um. They've even got a a lobbying
group in Congress advocating specifically for healthy living for girls,
(18:20):
positive media images, safety, financial literacy. I mean, I think
they really are working from the bottom up um to
enhance girls girls lives in the United States. And it
sounds like we're giving Girl Scouts the thumbs up at
are no matter what the national of you would have
us believe. Maybe it's just the cookies talking though, that's true.
(18:41):
Sugar high, Well, Kristen, once you come down for your
sugar high, why don't you hen over and learn more
about how the Girl Scouts work. Because I know you
weren't one, and I know it's very sad for you,
all painful, but you can learn all about them at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(19:01):
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told you?
From housetop works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Molly slightly under the weather, which is why
(00:20):
I might sound a little a little nasally. And this
is Kristen and I am in the peak of health
until my germ's get to her. But before that happens,
christ and I have a quick question for you. All right, Shoot,
were you ever a girl Scout? No, Molly, I was
not a girl Scout Um, to be completely honest with you,
(00:41):
I was actually in um sort of a fringe group,
if you will, girl scout esque um. It was a
like Christian organization. Instead of earning badges, we would memorize
Bible verses and instead of selling cookies, we've played Tug
of War. Doesn't really sound like the same thing at all, Christy,
(01:02):
Now I had a blast, Molly. All right, So I
was a girl Scout for many years. I loved it,
which is why I was very surprised to see an
article in the National Review, famed conservative publication UM by
Katherine Jeane Lopez that basically accused me of as a
Girl Scout being kind of a godless heathen, a lesbian,
(01:23):
enduring a teen pregnancy, and or having an abortion. Well
it's pretty surprising because the Girl Scouts seemed pretty squeaky clean.
I mean, even more so than the Boy Scouts that
came under a lot of scandal um in the past
few years. Girl Scouts seemed to have kept a pretty
pretty good image. You know, apparently Girl Scouts are feminist soldiers,
feminist foot soldiers. Well maybe I don't know that Juliette
(01:45):
Gordon Lowe, founder of the Girl Scouts, would really agree
with that. What do you think, Molly, you're the Girl
Scout expert here. You know, it's hard for me to
communicate right now at the spirit of Julia Gornlowe, because
even though my parents promised me we could go see
her childhood home, we never did, but we went to
Disney World instead. Well, um, speaking of her childhood at home,
that means you must have been in Savannah, Georgia and Savannah, Georgia,
(02:06):
and they told us the vacation was going to be
in Savannah, but it was in Disney World instead. I
think you're the only child in America would have been
upset about going to Disneyland instead of Savannah. All I
know is I had really built myself up to communicate
with her childhood spirit, to see where I come from
as a girl Scout, and it was all dashed to pieces.
For it's a small world after all. But I do
(02:27):
know this, even though I didn't get to take the tour. Um.
Julie gardlow was raised in a well to do Southern
American family. You know, she got a great education. She
hit a bump in the road with a very unhappy marriage,
and after the marriage, she you know, wanted to do
something a little bit more meaningful with her life. And
so she did, as all divorced women seemed to do
these days. She went abroad and she went to she
(02:48):
went to England. Yeah, and she met a guy there. Um.
No romantic comedy or anything, but she met Sir Robert
Baden Powell. Um. And he was the guy who had
had the idea for the boy Scouts and the girl
Guides which were in England. Yeah, and she, uh, Juliette
Gordon Lowe like the concept so much she brought it
back across the pond and started girl Scouts in uh
(03:10):
in nineteen twelve, right with eighteen girls in her hometown
of Savannah, Georgia, and UH basically started just teaching girls
how to develop leadership skills and like outdoor skills, building
camp fires and the like. And it kind of sounds like,
you know, those basic things of uh, you know, outdoor skills,
socializing with other girls really hasn't changed that much and
(03:32):
um and all the time since unless you're a reporter
for the National Review, I guess. But let's let's talk
more about what a girl scout it. Okay, there are
more than fifty million Girl Scout alums, of which I
am one, and then every year about two point seven
million girls um and nearly women in adults who helped
them participate in Girl Scouting activities. Really, so that's that's
a pretty big, pretty big number. Yeah, I think I
(03:53):
saw somewhere that it's something like Girl Scouts reaches out
to about um ten percent of American girls between the
ages of like five and seventeen ages to be a
Girl Scout. But you know, if you've ever been a
Girl Scout, you know that there are certain levels within
girl Scouting that you can be if you are between
(04:16):
five and six. You're a daisy scout, you know. And
I didn't know before I read how girl Scouts work.
I didn't even know about daisy scalps. Yeah, they're the
cutest of the girls. And the petals instead of badges,
it's all very flower oriented. Yeah, it's very sweet. Um.
So if you're more familiar with like the girl Scout
badge thing, they're just ordering earning pedals. Um. Like let's
(04:36):
say they help like with the garden. You get a pedal.
It's adorable, but you don't start actually getting uh. Then
then you starting patches when you're a brownie. These are
like things they give you to sort of, um, recognize
that you tried something. They're called try. It's it's adorable. Yeah,
so you get a patch just for try. You don't
have to succeed, you just have to try. And that's
(04:56):
for the brownies, right, Brownies. They're like six to age um.
As you might imagine, they do wear brown um and
they do things like learn a magic trick, complete a
timeline of your life there. Try it's for like computer
skills about learning about the earth. And they also do
service projects like maybe they'll babysit like for a pta
(05:17):
meeting or something. Okay, so let's say you're eight in
a lot between eight and eleven. Then we're finally after
Girl Scout badges and Kristen. This was my thing. I
was anal retentive about earning badges. I did badges on
my own time. I was always pushing the leader to
do more badges and less service projects because I needed
a visible sign of my triumphs. Did you ever wear
(05:38):
your your Girl Scout vest when you weren't actually doing
Girl Scout related activities? Yeah? I did. I have to
say my proudest moment was probably when they were giving
out badges and everyone else got like four and I
got twenty. Wow. That's probably why I didn't have many
friends when I was anyway, So these are the same
sort of themes they're working on. They're working on things
like computer skills, first aid, um, adventure sports, all sorts
(06:03):
of great things to prepare you for life later on.
I remember trying to earn some auto badge. Didn't really
help me in in this age, but I did at
one point learned how to change oil. Now. One thing
that I do like about all the Girls Scouts that
that if I had been a girl Scout. This is
probably the route that I would have taken. I probably
would have been a Juliette all right alone will an
alone wolf. Juliet's named after Juliet Gordon Lowe, the founder.
(06:27):
UM are girls who do Girls Scouts all on their own.
They are a troop of one. You can just you know,
participate in different activities, UM all on your own. Well,
you know, sometimes you don't live near a troop. Yeah,
I mean, and there were times when I want to
sort of speed from my troop and take things into
my own hands. UM. Anyway, if you're about my age,
(06:48):
then you'll remember that once your past junior, you become
a cadet, senior, or ambassador Girl Scout. They've renamed that
UM a name I'm not wild about. It's now called
Girl Scouts A love and to set teen. I would
have preferred to have been a cadet, and I actually
gave up girl skying after after I was a junior. Now,
I gotta say one thing that I'm kind of impressed
with with the Girl Scouts in general is that UM
(07:10):
it has maintained popularity over the years. From everything that
I've been able to find, all my sources tell me
that the numbers have remained pretty consistent over all of
these years, which I was kind of surprised to find out,
because I thought that they would have had a pretty
big dip in numbers, because you know, girls now are
(07:30):
interested in you know, they're on their iPhones and watching
reality TV. You know, I just you just don't. I
don't feel like I see that many girl scouts out anymore. Well,
I wonder if maybe those numbers would show a dip
at the same age for every girl when you do
actually get a little bit more interested in that sort
of stuff as opposed to going to chat to your
your troop meetings. Yeah, I think it's traditionally, Uh, they
(07:53):
have always kind of had a drop off around middle
school when you as you sort of get interested more
in boy is than making smores. So let's talk about
the actual girl scout life. You know, isn't it all
just about camping? I mean it's it's pretty much the
same types of things that Juliet Gordon Lowe was doing
out in the woods of Savannah while original troops, yes
and I didn't excuse me, spend quite a bit of
(08:14):
time in the mountains of North Carolina at Girl Scout
camp every summer. It was awesome. That is one thing
that I always wanted to do. I was always jealous
of my friends who went to girl Scout camp. Seemed
pretty awesome. It was pretty awesome, so that I went
to a resident camp, which is basically where you've got
the established camp site. Mine actually had covered wagons which
were awesome, um facilities for cooking and bathing and dining
(08:35):
hall um. But other people, you know, we're a little
bit more hardcore than than my troop was. You can actually,
you know, just go straight out into the woods. Some
girl Scouts do like trip camping, which is where you
bike from campsite to campsite or canoe or horseback between
those locations. That was a little bit more outside activity
than I wanted. I could basically just handle this smoor
aspect of the outside world as a girl Scout, but
(08:57):
some girls do that, and camping is one of the
used to be three season Now it's the five seas
of Girl Scouts, which is uh with your crafts, camping, cooking,
and now the two new editions computers and careers. Yeah,
as we were mentioned, you can get like try it
some bades for all sorts of computer skills. There are
lots of programs that get you to shadow someone who
(09:19):
has the career you're interested in. And also we're gonna
talk more about cookies, of course, because you can't talk
about Girl Scouts without cookies. But I have this new
theory that the Girl Scouts returning young girls into like
this this class of capitalists, because they're all these ways
to learn how to sell cookies better, like public relations, marketing. Um,
(09:40):
there's just a lot of science into selling these cookies
for these girls. Well, it all started out cookie sales
in nineteen two. Well, the first the first girls Girl
Scout cookies were sold in nineteen seventeen by local troupe.
But then in nineteen twenty two, there is an article
published in the official Girl Scout publication, The American Girl
UM describing how you could make Girl Scout cookies for
(10:04):
a profit, So you might be honest thing. Yeah, yeah,
they they had recipes for um, six or seven dozen
cookies that would only cost you, say, a quarter to make,
and then you can sell them for um a quarter
a dozen. So already you can see girl Scouts are smart.
They know how to turn a profit. In nine four,
(10:25):
a troop in Philadelphia became the first troop to sell
cookies that have been baked by a commercial baker because,
as we know, yeah, outsourcing, because if you have bought
Girl Scout cookies in the past, oh, I don't know,
like twenty years or something, they have these really you
know sweet boxes. They come in. They're all plastic wrapped,
and you know those little little Girl Scouts as little
(10:46):
Daisy Scouts weren't making those at home. No, they're I mean,
when you see green, you know to run because you
know they have thin mints left minus Samoa's purple box. Really,
I'm I'm thin mint. I'm not gonna lie. UM. I
liked though that during World War Two, instead of um,
instead of selling cookies because of like all of the
food shortages, they sold calendars. I think I did sell
(11:08):
calendars one year. See. The thing about it was is
eventually you had to have a fall fundraiser and a
Spring fund raiser. Spring was always cookies and Fall was
usually something lame like nuts or calendars that never sold
as well as cookies. I think the fundraising was another
thing that kept me out of Girl Scouts. It was
a lot of pressure. Yeah, not a big fan. Well,
speaking of pressure, Girl Scout cookie sales are always kind
of controversial because of uh, you know, some some mothers
(11:31):
in particular might get a little over zealous with helping
their children sell. And um, there's this great story about
this one mother who set up a sale stand while
her daughter was in school and ended up selling a
record breaking seventeen thousand, three hundred and twenty three boxes
of Girl Scout cookies. But maybe you're wondering where all
(11:52):
the money goes, and I can tell you that basically
seventy percent of the money stays within the local council
and councils you know maybe oversee a few you um
troops and their main three percent goes the bakery for
all that hard work, um, seventy percent of the council
receives each troop receives their funding for the year, and
they get about twelve to seventeen percent of what they
sold in the cookie sales. UM. So, and then they
(12:15):
can use that money to have activities, to have snacks
that might help send a girl to Girl Scout camp.
So it really does. It's not just you know, girls
out on the street. She'lling cookies for no reason. But well,
it's good to know, Molly that the Girl Scout money
is on the up and up that, UM, you know,
we aren't all those cookies that we buy and eat
aren't just a huge sham had the pockets of Girl
(12:35):
Scout troop leaders. But that doesn't mean that the Girl
Scouts have been completely controversy free. I mean, they've kept
things pretty clean, but like you mentioned at the beginning
of the podcast, with this National Review article, UM, they
have gotten flak from more conservative parents for things that
they've done right. I mean, basically, the reason that the
Girl Scouts aren't as controversial as the Boy Scouts is
(12:57):
because they have more of an open door policy, UM,
where the Boy Scouts, you know, try and regulate who's
coming in the door. UM. But that's where it leads
to this perception by some conservatives, UM, that the organization
is run by these radical and militant feminists and lesbians.
According to this article. Now does that have something to
do with, um, the alteration to the Girl's Scout oath. Um,
(13:18):
there's one part and the Girl Scout oath may I
quote on my honor, I will try to serve God
in my country, and UM, the Girl Scouts came back
pretty recently and said, you know, if you want to
say God and your Girl Scout oath, you can or
you know, we recognize that God or deities whatever are
different to every every person and it's a very individual thing,
(13:40):
so you can replace God with whatever. Yeah, you can
say whatever word you want there. So yeah, that's one
part of it that's not gonna make conservatives that happy. UM.
Another thing is just some of the programs they'll do UM.
The nationale of the article talks about UM diet hills,
UM eating disorders and how you know, when the Girl
Scouts talk about this, it sort of puts idea is
into girls heads. I guess, UM, you know you can
(14:03):
work do these exercises as a as a team. That
talked about how you can support the decision to pull
a life support system from a dying relative, or high
could support someone who's designed to end their pregnancy. So
that gets into the whole abortion issue. Well, I know
that there was also in two thousand four UM there
were Girl Scout boycotts. I think specifically in Waco, Texas
(14:24):
that I saw they had cookie boycotts because of UM
controversy surrounding UM planned parenthood. Sponsoring. I think it was sex,
said seminars that a certain troop was holding in. Parents
were outraged thinking that the Girl Scouts was promoting, you know,
premarital sex and abortion and things like that. So and
also making the conservatives none too happy. Was a book
(14:48):
that came out in called On My Honor Lesbians reflect
on their Scouting Experience, which had an essay entitled all
I really need to know about being a lesbian I
learned at Girl Scout camp, and it talks about how
all know this girl into camp and all her counselors
were lesbians, and that, um, you know, there was an
estimate in the book that one in three Girl Scouts
paid professional staff for lesbians. So if you're a mom
(15:09):
and maybe a small town conservative, Girl Scouts don't seems
so squeaky clean. But at the same time, Molly, that
also reflects, like you said, the non discrimination that's really
embraced by the Girls Scouts. I was reading an article
in the New York Times, I think that came out
maybe in two thousand and six or two thousand seven,
about how specifically for Muslim girls, Girl Scouts has been
(15:29):
a really good way to kind of assimilate into new neighborhoods,
particularly given you know, more of the kind of discriminatory
climate against Muslims after the nine eleven attacks, and how it's, um,
you know, really good outlet for these girls to feel
accepted and like they're you know, a part of a community. So,
you know, in my opinion, I think it's really I
(15:50):
think it's really good that the Girls Scouts is so
open and you know, advocating character and leadership skills. Oh,
I know, it's not like you know, they you know,
it's not like they have a try at badge for
being a lesbian, right right. The Girl Scouts really have
devoted a lot of time and resources to molding their
programs to the challenges that girls face today. For instance, um,
(16:11):
they do a lot more programming with self esteem and
things like cyber bullying and what to do if you
find out, you know, if your friend is cutting yourself obviously,
things that Julia Gordon Lowe probably was not talking about
around the camp fire in nineteen twelve. And um, also
one thing that amused me a little bit when you're
talking about badges, uh, to to sort of see how
(16:34):
how the programs have evolved for today's girl Scout. For instance,
in nineteen thirteen, girls would earn mature and housekeeper badges,
and in order to earn a matorn housekeeper badge, girl
scout had to learn how to either use a vacuum
cleaner or clean glass or this is my favorite, No.
(16:55):
Three cuts of meat and the prices of each um.
And thankfully today that has been replaced by the misfix
It badge UM, in which girls demonstrate how to repair
a leaking toilet or help with some painting. Um, do
you maybe no less um fifties housekeeper type of chores?
It seems like, um, you know they're really trying to
(17:15):
just stay relevant. But you know one thing that's never changed, Kristen,
What's that The Gold Award. The Gold Award, it's the
highest pinnacle and girls Scouting. And I'm going to guess
that you went for the Gold Award. I didn't and
it's it's it's haunted me ever since. It's a huge
regret that I did not get the Gold Award. Um.
But if you're between the ages of fourteen and eighteen,
(17:36):
you do this project. Basically, you keep a journal where
you work for thirty hours and leadership role you do
forty hours of career exploration, and then you choose a
community service project that you design and carry out all
on your own. You make a final report. I know,
it's right up my alley thesis project. It is. And
just because you do all this work doesn't mean you're
(17:56):
gonna get the Gold Award. What only five point five
or sent of eligible Girl Scouts get it? Cut throat.
It is cut throat, but you know we've got standard
of excellence. You can't give everyone an oscar. It's true,
It's true. You know the girls, the Girl Scouts does
maintain high standards. Um. They've even got a a lobbying
group in Congress advocating specifically for healthy living for girls,
(18:20):
positive media images, safety, financial literacy. I mean, I think
they really are working from the bottom up um to
enhance girls girls lives in the United States. And it
sounds like we're giving Girl Scouts the thumbs up at
are no matter what the national of you would have
us believe. Maybe it's just the cookies talking though, that's true.
(18:41):
Sugar high, Well, Kristen, once you come down for your
sugar high, why don't you hen over and learn more
about how the Girl Scouts work. Because I know you
weren't one, and I know it's very sad for you,
all painful, but you can learn all about them at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(19:01):
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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