The Girl Scouts of the USA are starting a feud with their male counterparts, accusing the Boy Scouts of America of trying to poach recruits.
Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, president of the GSUSA, accused the Boy Scouts of a “covert campaign to recruit girls,” calling it “reckless” and “unsettling” in a scathing letter sent Tuesday and obtained by Buzzfeed News.
“We were disappointed in the lack of transparency as we learned that you are surreptitiously testing the appeal of a girls’ offering to millennial parents,” Hannan wrote to Boy Scouts President Randall Stephenson. “It is entirely dishonest to claim to be a single gender organization while simultaneously endeavoring upon a co-ed model.”
Hannan said it was shortsighted to think a program tailored to boys could easily be translated to girls, and added that trying a co-ed model would undercut the Girl Scouts.
Boy Scout membership has plummeted by a third since 2000 to just more than 2 million as of 2016, according to the Washington Post, and the letter suggested they were using proposed girls programs to bolster “declining membership.”
Hannan said it was unsettling that the Boy Scouts would try to increase their numbers by testing girls’ programming and that they should try to appeal to boys not involved in BSA instead.
“Boy Scouts should instead take steps to ensure that they are expanding the scope of their programming to all boys, including those who BSA has historically underserved and underrepresented, such as African American and Latino boys,” she wrote.
“We are confused as to why, rather than working to appeal to the 90 percent of boys who are not involved in BSA programs, you would choose to target girls,” she continued.
The letter also accused BSA of making “disparaging and untrue remarks about the Girl Scouts” during “family meetings” where the new programming was outlined.
“Starting off any program when people are feeling bullied is not in keeping with the founding ideals of either Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts,” she wrote.
Hannan ended the letter by formally requesting that the Boy Scouts not consider recruiting girls.