 |
| Mmmmmmmmm |
Oh put your hands down! That was a rhetorical question! Everyone likes Girl Scout cookies and if you don't you're a liar! In fact, if you're like me, spring has a nasty habit of turning you into something that looks like this and sucking all the money out of your wallet.
 |
| Portrait of a cookie addict |
It probably goes without saying that a woman was the founder of the Girl Scouts but I didn't know the woman's name. So, to remedy this, I submit today's profile on Juliette Gordon Low.
 |
| Philanthropist and Founder of the Girl Scouts |
Ms. Low, also known as Daisy and "Crazy Daisy" due to some rather notable eccentricties for the time (such as *gasp* empathy for non-whites and a desire to see girls be independent!), was born in Savannah Georgia in 1860. A Southern Belle by many accounts this actually only sort of holds up under scrutiny. See, she was born not long before the Civil War and her family was, like many in the time (as often happens in a 'Civil war') divided on the issue. Her father, staunch Southerner, agreed with the Southern Secession and its desire to carry on slavery. Her mother on the other hand was a northerner supported abolition and the Northern efforts to restore the union. You know, suddenly that Juliette name is beginning to make a bit more sense.
The war ended when Juliette was 4 and her mother relocated herself and the children to live with their maternal relatives in Illinois to get away from the hostilties of their neighbors. Oh did I mention that Low's family was kind of loaded?
 |
| Maybe not Scrooge McDuck diving into money rich but definitely loaded. |
How loaded? I'm talking helped found Chicago loaded! So Daisy was rolling in more than a little bit of privilege while living up north. Her Grandfather was saavy investor and established a number of city functions. The monied upbringing could have made Low into a selfish, aristocratic brat but instead, exposure to the different groups of people her Grandfather would deal with on the regular opened up her empathy and awareness of cultures and ideas outside of her own. She'd eventually return to the South with her reunited family in 1865 but her attitude would stay with her.
Fast foward several years and young "Daisy" (remember the nickname) was torn between traditional duty and her own restless soul. After a spat with her mother over finances she convinced her family to let her study painting since it was considered an "appropriate" profession for someone of her status and gender. She still got saddled with a husband at 26 who ended up distant from her. He ended up taking a mistress and then drinking himself stupid and eventually to death before the divorce proceedings he asked for could be finalized.
 |
| OOOOOOOH MY! |
So afterwards, Juliette Low travelled extensively. As a child she'd lost her hearing due to an infection and in what should have been an omen that some shit was going to go down, she lost hearing in her other ear when a bit of rice got caught in it during her wedding ceremony to the individual I'll be dubbing "The Dead Douche." So on these travels she was looking both for a treatment for her deafness and something to occupy her skills and time. A purpose. Somewhere to put her vast energy.
Well she got one of the two. See while spending time in London she met the guy who founded the Boy Scouts. A fellow named Sir Robert Baden-Powell was struggling with a problem of all the girls who were showing up at his rallies wanting to be involved in scouting. He needed a solution to this. Now he could have just integrated the scouts but this was the early 1900's. Women still didn't have the right to vote yet and the idea of co-ed scouting was just balderdash to these folks. Low on the other hand saw an opportunity and so, rather than telling him, "Oh just let the girls scout you asshole!" decided to form her own organization both in Europe and back home.
And she did just that in 1912. Born out of some of the experiments with a group called the Girl Guides in Britain, Low started her first troop in her home state of Georgia. She wanted to make the scouts a place where the girls could improve their self-esteem, enjoy the bonds of sisterhood, gain a measure of self-sufficiency and be open to girls across social, racial and ethnic lines. This was a far cry from the boyscouts which began as an early paramilitary training concept to teach boys to be prepared to defend their countries and prepare them for military service.
No wonder one group is open to lesbian and transgendered girls while the other only just recently got around to allowing gay scouts but bans or segregates gay councilors.
 |
| The boys could learn a thing or two |
During her time leading the Scouts and developing the organization in the states Low became something of a fairy godmother figure for her first small troop and then other girls over time. Seemingly a strange combination of cool aunt and some fan fiction idea of a female Doctor from Doctor Who she'd stand on her head at meetings, tell spooky stories to the girls around the camp fire and went out of her way to see what it was the girls thought, wanted or believed rather than trying to force it down their throats. A concept some people struggle to grasp to this day.
Now, it wouldn't be until some time much later that the Girl Scouts would start selling the cookies that they've become famous for but there's a lot more interesting little tidbits to the story. Fights over naming of the organization, the story of the man who was in charge of scouting in the states who wasn't too keen on the Boy Scouts having a sister organization. Presumably because he was a big man child who thought girls had cooties etc. The list goes on. And while it's likely that the Girl Scouts could have done better in terms of inclusion and diversity in their early days (but they began in the 1900's. Trying to be inclusive in that era at all put them ahead of the game), in the modern era they're still actively trying to improve and reach a more inclusive status as an organization. It wouldn't have begun at all however, without Juliette Gordon Low.
No comments:
Post a Comment