It's just word for the Scouts that they remain so popular, but it got me thinking about the special way that sexual equality works.
When I was a boy the Scouts were but for boys - the handbook may even have yet been called "Scouting for Boys".
While I was still a member the UK leadership changed the rules to allow girls to join, but left the selection of whether to have girls to individual troops. We had but one question from a girl and the leader asked us to vote whether the mass should admit girls. The vote was a whole no and as I think the primary cause was because we all good wanted somewhere we could all go that was good for us boys (I was about 10 at the time so maybe the reasoning wasn't quite so clearly defined as I recall).
Something that has always intrigued me is why there was a figure for the Boy Scouts to have girls but no similar name for the Girl Guides to admit boys. I'm pretty certain that many people would say "well, boys wouldn't care to join the Guides", but that was only what we all thought about girls before they were allowed to merge the Scouts!
This form of positive discrimination can be seen in other aspects of our society. For example, when I studied A-Level law our teacher asked the class to vote on sentences. By a bulk of about 20 to 3, the class voted to get a lower sentence to a woman than a man where both were convicted of the same crime. Even now, my advice to female clients is that although in theory they should be sentenced on the same principals as their male counterparts, in reality the risk of their going to prison is far lower.
This isn't limited exclusively to sentencing, it can also be seen in the way the prosecution present their cases to juries. A few years ago I defended in a conspiracy to cultivate cannabis case where two husband and wife teams were said to have been running cannabis farms on an industrial scale. It seemed to me that they were all in it together, but the prosecution went after the husbands so much that the wives defence barely had to say a word throughout the case.
In another example, three people were accused of money launder. The woman was found with all the cash (approx. one million pounds cash) and all the banking records in her home. She was also observed making deposits into bank accounts as part of the laundering activity. She was caught out lying several times during interview about her activities, land ownership etc. Her boyfriend and his nephew were hardly seen making deposits. The prosecution placed her last on the indictment and went for the two men with gusto. Both men were convicted but our client, the woman and brains behind the operation, was acquitted.
Is any of this commodity or wrong? Is it but in my imagination?
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