I am 15, and in Grade 10. I am also a Scout (no, not are “Girl Guide,” or a “Girl Scout,” a Scout.)
At Scouts, we have arty activities called STAs (Spare time activities) along with various other activities. My troop had a junior (10-14 year olds) compete in a hiking competition called Upton Shield. We hike from base to base reading off a map, do activities and STAs. The juniors refused to do the STAs because they are a “girls’ job,” and there won’t any girls on the team. It makes me sick that the juniors thought that it was so beneath them to do something that they decided is for girls (which it isn’t), that they would rather do badly in the competition than do the STAs.
My second story is from school. Last year (in Grade 9), my geography teacher said that “a teenage boy is more emotionally mature than a woman will ever be.” He wasn’t even joking. He genuinely believed that a 14 year old boy has more emotional maturity than my mother, the woman who signal handedly raised me and my sister. It just infuriates me how someone with so much influence over the lives of children can preach such sexist things.
