Who's Emily?

Last week at Scouts, we carved Jack O-Lanterns. One of the boys expressed his distaste for "gutting" the pumpkin and too vocally announced he wasn't going to to it. That's all it took, the other boys pounced on him, teasing him and calling him by a girl's name. (For unknown reasons, they chose "Emily.")

The kid floundered; clearly he didn't expect this reaction.  His father tried to explain to him that he was "getting a reputation" by not cleaning his own pumpkin, but the kid didn't seem to mind - the other kids kept good-naturedly ribbing him. It wasn't really bullying - that would've be stopped immediately. But it still bothered me.

What irked me wasn't that he was getting needled for not shoving his hands into a bunch of cold, sticky squash innards. (Even I teased him about that being the best part of carving pumpkins, as I dumped his pumpkin's guts out for him.) No, I was concerned that he was equated to a girl - as if there was something wrong or weal about being female.

I told him that the way to stop it was either dig in, or to challenge the other guys about the way they see woman. Several of the other dads clearly got the point, and for the most part, the teasing stopped.

The whole incident made me think: the Scouts are about teaching boys to become men, and they should know that a real man understands that women are just as loyal, trustworthy and brave as he is.