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Washington, Apr 9 (ANI): A study has found that America’s scouts are being fed stereotypical ideas about femininity and masculinity by Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts manuals.

Kathleen Denny, a sociology graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park, analysed scouting manuals.

Girl scouts, for example, are steered away from scientific pursuits while boys are discouraged from pursuing artistic interests. While gender has been analysed in children’s books and television, it has rarely been examined in scouting manuals.

“The disproportionate and gendered distribution of art and science projects aligns with the large body of research that finds girls being systematically derailed from scientific and mathematical pursuits and professions due to cultural beliefs and stereotypes about their relative ineptitude in these areas,” Denny said.

Among Denny’s other key findings:

Girls are more likely than the boys to be offered activities involving art projects; Girls’ art activities make up 11 percent of their total activities.

Scientifically-oriented activities make up only 2 percent of all girls’ activities, but boys science activities take up 6 percent of their scouting time.

Girls are offered proportionately more communal activities than boys; 30 percent of the girls’ badge work activities are intended to take place in groups, either with or for others.

Boys are offered proportionately more self-oriented activities than girls; less than 20 percent of the boys’ activities are intended to take place with others.

Despite her findings of stereotypical notions of femininity, Denny found that the boys’ handbook “fosters intellectual dependence and passivity”.

Boys are routinely instructed to look for answers in the back of their guide, while girls are encouraged to do original research.

She also found that the types of activities the badges entail are “the most explicitly gendered dimensions in the girls’ handbook”.

Examples of badges that have to do with stereotypically feminine activities include: Caring for Children, Looking Your Best, and Sew Simple.

In addition to activities about personal hygiene and healthy eating, the Looking Your Best badge offers activities such as a ‘Colour Party’ that asks the girls to “take turns holding different colours up to your face to decide which colours look best on each of you”.

That same badge also offers the activity option of an ‘Accessory Party’ where the girls “experiment to see how accessories highlight your features and your outfit”.

These badges are not offered in the Boy Scouts; the boys’ Fitness badge, the only one approximating a personal-style badge, offers activities such as completing a weeklong food diary and telling a family member about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.

Her findings were recently published in Gender and Society, the highly ranked journal of Sociologists for Women in Society. (ANI)