Many of the gender features from coeducational classrooms match what we have seen in our troops. The boys tend to dominate the space, physically and verbally, while the girls adapt to what remains. We saw this, for instance, in the play sequences in Slovakia, during the hike in Portugal, during competitions in Russia, in the public conversations in Denmark. The leaders paid more attention to boys, especially in public settings, whereas communication with girls tended to be more private. According to our observations in the camps, it was especially the male leaders who seemed to pay very little attention to the girls, although some of the female leaders were also very preoccupied with the boys. This seems to be much the same dynamic as with the teachers: the boys were seen as unruly but interesting, the girls as compliant and a bit boring. In addition, some of the male leaders praised the girls for their role as ‘the putty of the classroom’:
TL(m) (Slovakia): Those girls, their peacefulness can be used everywhere. For example, if I need to make something for the Cub Scouts, maybe some Christmas pictures or a tree, with boys I don’t have a chance. They just don’t do it, they will not. But the girls, they will do it with pleasure.
209 See Kruse, A.-M. (1992). "'...We have learnt not just to sit back. twiddle our thumbs and let them take over'. Single- sex settings and the development of a pedagogy for girls and a pedagogy for boys in Danish Schools." Gender and Education 4(1/2). and Kruse, A.-M. (1996). "Approaches to teaching girls and boys." Women's Studies International Forum
TL(m) (Denmark): They are in the middle, they have sort of a peace-keeping role, they want everybody to feel good, and have an integrating role here among all those big, terrible, boys and the smaller ones. Such as: Are we now taking enough care of little Peter?
It seems to be a widespread belief within Scouting that the patrol system is, in itself, a remedy for inequalities.210 The idea is that a coeducated patrol, based on principles of equality and mutual respect, will lead to positive and respectful relations between girls and boys. What has been taken less into consideration is the border work of boys and the different ways of
confirming one’s identity according to both gender and age. Often, boys and girls have different preferences concerning what they consider to be amusing activities, and how to confirm one’s identity. Whereas many of the boys enjoy demonstrating their strength, being unruly, becoming number one and showing off, many girls are more interested in doing things well, sharing secrets, and including personal relationships in their activities. We saw this most clearly demonstrated in the different cultures of the boys’ patrol and the girl-dominated patrol in Portugal: the efficient organisation, and motherly care and attention to individuals in the girls’ patrol, and the messy, but relaxed, hierarchical structure of the boys’ patrol. Should the patrol be a loyal unit or a gang of friends with personal relationships? Boys and girls tend to choose differently. The boys find the motherly style suffocating, whereas the girls find the boys’ obsession with strength, rank and hierarchy rather stupid.
Another problem is what boys’ fraternity processes do to girls. The boys demonstrate
masculinity to each other, and may use girls as raw material for this, either by deeming them irrelevant, or by increasing collective self-esteem through a condescending attitude to girls. Small boys look to big boys to learn how to behave (cf. Michal in Slovakia and António in Portugal). The girls are placed at the bottom of the boy hierarchy, and the fact of teasing the girls may create coherence among the boys. The nature of the girls’ teasing is related more to making themselves interesting in the eyes of the boys, as we saw with Camilla. This also applies to the bigger girls who, individually or in competition with each other, tried to attract the
attention of older boys. Some girls also expressed reluctance at taking part in the boys’ wild play – as in the Danish girls who left the troop and Julie (who was still there) who was reluctant to take part in the games, the Slovak girls who did not enter the river while the boys were playing, the Russian girls who did not enjoy being targets for snowballs. When crawling over the rope net in Portugal, the girls spontaneously held out the rope for the boys, whereas the boys were only concerned with their own performance. Antonio crawled over the ropes, even though he was afraid, whereas Fátima needed more persuasion. So did Nadya when she jumped the tarzanka.
As a result of all this, the coherence of mixed patrols may be a problem. The difference in numbers is also an important consideration. When one gender is in the minority, they may be given a hard time and, given the membership profile in Scouting, this will most often be the girls. The different cultures of identity confirmation may also make it difficult to overcome: for the Russian and Portuguese boys, for instance, taking over cooking was a threat to the girls’ identity confirmation. Girls who try to be strong and clever may be a threat to boys, or risk being seen as unfeminine. As the Russian girls said, a woman with big muscles is not a real woman - she is a man. For girls, the allurement of the weak position may also be at stake: it is nice to be nursed or waited on by big, strong boys.
These aspects also have consequences on their chances of leadership. Boys are more concerned with rank and rivalry. In the Danish boys’ patrol, three of the four boys described themselves as leaders! Leadership seemed to be a more serious business to them. They stressed authority and mastery, whereas the girls stressed the ability to listen. Most boys found boys best as leaders – they were more competent, had more authority. This was also the case in Portugal in spite of the fact that it was the ‘feminine’ leadership abilities that counted in this case! Generally boys found girls too nervous and fussy to be leaders. As Portuguese Hugo explained: ‘It is just the way they deal with others, because they are girls’. In Russia and Portugal, girls were seen as incompetent to become patrol leaders, whereas in Slovakia and Denmark (where boys gave girls more credit for the girls’ competence), the argument was that it was hard for boys to have a girl leader. The girls stressed more equality in leadership, but admitted that they found it difficult to assert their authority over unruly boys and that they felt less inventive than the boys. As the Russian and Slovak girls expressed it, the combination of egotistical boys and vulnerable girls makes leadership difficult:
Wanda (Slovakia): Boys just tell you, ‘Who me? Go away!’. But girls understand it differently. Maybe you can’t see it on the outside, but inside she is worrying.
Lena (Russia): I’m not against it [girls as PL]… but they can say to her something like ‘Go to Hell!’. It will hurt her.
As we saw in the interviews, boys were more reticent about mixed patrols than girls. The Slovak boys thought that girls would distract them too much and that they would have to refine their behaviour; the Portuguese boys thought that girls would destroy the relaxed atmosphere with their perfectionism and fussiness. The Russian and the Danish boys who were a year or two older found it okay with girls, but also okay without. The girls lowered the standards by being slow, weak and scared, but they also added some kindness, perhaps a soothing element that counteracted the macho culture, and were useful when it came to cooking and dishwashing. The girls criticised the bad and egocentric behaviour of boys, but were generally more positive about mixed patrols because they also found the boys more fun and inventive. The Russian girls also needed them as ‘the labour of the patrol’, whereas the other girls tended to find themselves as the servants of the patrol. Some girls admitted that mixed patrols meant accepting boys’ domination, whereas the Danish girls still hoped that mixed patrols would one day lead boys to respect them, as it was only by being together with them that they could demonstrate how clever they were.
What is different in Scouting compared to the classroom is that the group includes different age groups. With few others of one’s age there may be no one with whom to create an alliance. We remember Mads and António who sat by the two girls without really entering the circle because they were younger than the other boys. We remember Julie who, as the youngest girl, was harassed by younger boys and did not have an age-mate with whom to counteract this. She was taken care of by the older boys, but they did not confirm her identity as a special person. The prepubescent girls in Russia and Slovakia were strong because they operated in pairs. The combination of age and gender also leads to different dynamics in the patrol. We saw it in Portugal: PL Luis held authority over the younger boys in his patrol and made them do the work, whereas the younger boys of PL Ana’s patrol were allowed to escape the work, while the younger girls were put to work The younger boys in Luis’ patrol accepted and even admired his authority, whereas the younger boys in Ana’s patrol constantly challenged hers. In Denmark, where the mixed patrol had a boy leader, the girls accepted his control and also did the work. Thus, the age and gender patterns interfered more negatively with the girls’ patrol leader position than with boys’. As the Danish boys described it: if a girl were a PL and a boy were a PA, they would have the same authority! The most sensitive age relationship in Scouting seems to be the one between pubescent girls and latency/prepubescent boys. Some 13-year-old boys appeared to have problems respecting a girl leader. It is a very different situation for a girl to be the leader of contemptuous prepubescent boys, than for a boy to be the leader of active,
prepubescent girls. Girls respond through motherly control or teasing of the smaller boys – thereby motivating them even more to become like the big ones who do what they want. This catalogue of possible gender knots in the patrol is probably close to a ‘worst case scenario’, as it presents together all the different types of problems we saw in all the different troops. The patrol model in Scouting is seen as essential, and for good reasons. It gives young people a free space of their own, and an arena in which they have to take on responsibility and rely on and learn from each other. The survival of the Scout Movement is probably indebted to this educational approach. However, this does not mean that it is without problems, and, in my opinion, the leaders could be more aware of problems that may arise in groups of young people of different ages and gender – hence this ‘worst case’ list. The principle of ‘the autonomy of the patrol’ is unique and positive, but it appeared to me that it might also function as a ‘rubber band concept’: made relevant in some situations, and not in others. While most leaders considered it acceptable to intervene in the life of the patrol with practical instructions of all sorts, problems related to age and gender were generally overlooked and left to the young people (especially the girls) to solve by themselves.