The Boy Scouts and the `Girl Question
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2392642 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sam Pryke (0000-0003-3742-0407, Liverpool Hope University College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 191-210 |
| Publication date | 2001-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sexualities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-4607 • E-ISSN: 1461-7382 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/136346001004002005 |
| OpenAlex | W1996613635 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 7 |
This article examines the attitude of the early Boy Scouts movement to sexual relationships between boys and girls. The Scouts were founded by Baden-Powell in 1907 to try and reverse the perceived physical and moral deterioration of British youth. Though he was not involved with the subsequent `girl problem', the episode was in keeping with his attempt to instil order and respectability in British youth, especially the working class. Going further than other Edwardian youth organizations, a number of Scoutmasters proposed that girls were unsettling and distracting boys and contributing to the decline of the nation. In part they perceived the Scouts and the Guides as a means to constructively occupy British youth, given the temptation of `walking out'. Although the attempt to stop boys and girls going out with each other was abandoned by the Scout Association in 1917, Baden-Powell took up the issue of heterosexual relationships in his writings of the early 1920s. His advice to boys recognized sexual pleasure but warned of the dangers of certain `girls' and counselled against pre-marital sex. The article concludes by reiterating what the episode reflected: class snobbery, fears surrounding the city, the invention of adolescence, a fear of female sexuality, eugenics and social purity
Boy Scouts · Developmental psychology · Girl · Human sexuality · Pleasure · Political science · Sociology · Temptation · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2005 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |