A family planning chief at the helm of Girlguiding UK caused outrage, but
Julie Bentley shows the organisations aren’t so different after all.
Julie Bentley is the new chief executive of the Girl Guide Association
Julie Bentley is the new chief executive of the Girl Guide Association
So this week’s announcement that Julie Bentley, the former head of the Family
Planning Association, has been appointed chief executive of Girlguiding UK
was met with horror from some quarters.
Religious groups lined up to declare that this sex-peddling liberal would
destroy innocent girlhood and turn a treasured institution into a hotbed of
promiscuity.
“The Girl Guides is an organisation which should protect girls from these
sorts of pressures,” boomed Mike Judge of a Christian think tank. Jill
Kirby, a social policy author, declared: “One of the reasons why girls want
to join the Guides…is that they can escape from sex and television culture.
“I would have hoped that anyone leading the Guides would understand that. I
don’t believe Ms Bentley does.”
The message on the institution’s mugs — “Keep Calm and Carry on Guiding” — suddenly seems rather apt. But will Miss Bentley, 43, really be so bad for the Guides?
I first met her when she arrived as the head of the FPA in 2007. I had been a patron since 2000 and the arrival of the vibrant and then 38-year-old (who uses the phrase “Cor Blimey!” without irony) to a 75-year-old charity was a breath of fresh air.
Like me, she could occasionally be frustrated by the term “Family Planning” (she recognised that it meant little to 15-year-olds in Brixton), but she sufficiently respected the heritage of the well-known institution to reject a full-scale overhaul of its name.
I quickly learnt that Miss Bentley was not driven by a belief that people should be having rampant, inconsequential sex.
Instead, she was focused on empowering people, especially young girls, through self-esteem and age-appropriate knowledge, regardless of whether they choose condoms or abstinence. She is also a fighter for the underdog.
At heart, she is driven by the passionately held view that young people are often misunderstood and misrepresented.
Miss Bentley was a volunteer long before David Cameron defined the Big Society. Leaving school at 18, she inquired about being a youth worker in Essex, where she grew up.
“I was told I couldn’t be one, because I was still a youth myself,” she laughs. “So I volunteered two evenings a week at youth clubs and did my training while also working as a post lady.
“I loved that, walking in the outdoors and meeting lots of people.”
Though she was never a Guide, she describes her childhood, in a working-class home, as “fabulous”.
She adds: “So much so that I was aware of how lacking some children’s lives could be.”
Surprisingly, her biggest challenge in taking the helm of the Girl Guides is not to recruit more females to the biggest youth organisation in the UK (it boasts 540,000 members) but to mobilise more helpers.
“We have 100,000 volunteers who deliver literally millions of hours per year.
“But women’s lives are different now — 50 years ago we could give 30 hours a week.
“But we need to be more flexible these days, and if people can only give the odd hour, that’s great.”
She was pushy but polite in recruiting famous faces to the FPA, somehow persuading Jo Brand and Clare Balding to host its annual dinner.
So I’m sure, I tell her, that she will have no trouble in finding the Girl Guides a celebrity figurehead akin to Bear Grylls, who represents the Scouts with muddy-faced machismo.
“No,” she chides. “Women and girls can’t be summed up like that. Some love sport. Others hate all that sweating. No one woman represents all of us.”
I remember much heartache and head-scratching at the FPA as we tried to sum up the charity’s many aims in one sentence.
Miss Bentley, however, swiftly changed the strapline from the rather dreary “putting sexual health on the agenda” to “talking sense about sex”.
This forward-thinking clarity sums her up: a no-nonsense, ambitious goal-setter who celebrated her 40th birthday three years ago by cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
She went on the mission with her partner of 11 years, Sean, in aid of the Feham Village Appeal which builds schools in India. So, as she prepares to bring the same energy to the Girl Guides, how would she sum up their aim in an MTV age?
She pauses for a second. “To have fun, be happy and realise your potential.
“I want to help young people understand that… confidence, self-esteem and inner belief is going to determine what they do with their lives,” she says.
That people have criticised her appointment because of her background in family planning has not fazed her.
“That was lazy headline-writing,” she tells me. “The two are not connected.”
What has surprised her, though, is the shock caused by her description of the Guides as “the ultimate feminist organisation”.
“In 1909 the Girl Guides started because a group of girls marched on a Scout meeting and said, 'What about us?’ For over 100 years, we’ve been echoing that same sentiment.
“I find it extraordinary that people are offended by the word 'feminist’ in 2012, but it has been very corrupted.”
But in these inclusive times, she is inevitably having to answer questions about the Guides’ female-only policy. (The Scouts, on the other hand, have included older girls since 1976, with younger girls admitted from 2007.)
“It is right and proper that girls and boys mix across society.
“But girls need freedom to be themselves and have fun with other girls without stereotypes.”
As a mother, I can think of nothing better than several hours a week in which my daughters might spend time with other girls (especially at a cost of roughly £20 for a three-month term), but surely the Guides is just not cool?
“Anyone who thinks Guides isn’t cool needs to look again,” Miss Bentley says with passion.
“Every year we have the Big Gig, a pop concert in which we fill Wembley with the latest acts and Girl Guides. It’s amazing.
“And of course we still do all the outdoor stuff as well — zip-wires, rock-climbing and grass-sledging.”
Although my two girls are only three and 18 months, Miss Bentley teases me that the popularity of the Guides is such that “you need to get their names down now”.
She adds: “We have a 50,000-strong waiting list.”
She reads my mind: “Don’t worry, there’s no uniform to iron! It’s all hoodies and tracksuits now.”
The message on the institution’s mugs — “Keep Calm and Carry on Guiding” — suddenly seems rather apt. But will Miss Bentley, 43, really be so bad for the Guides?
I first met her when she arrived as the head of the FPA in 2007. I had been a patron since 2000 and the arrival of the vibrant and then 38-year-old (who uses the phrase “Cor Blimey!” without irony) to a 75-year-old charity was a breath of fresh air.
Like me, she could occasionally be frustrated by the term “Family Planning” (she recognised that it meant little to 15-year-olds in Brixton), but she sufficiently respected the heritage of the well-known institution to reject a full-scale overhaul of its name.
I quickly learnt that Miss Bentley was not driven by a belief that people should be having rampant, inconsequential sex.
Instead, she was focused on empowering people, especially young girls, through self-esteem and age-appropriate knowledge, regardless of whether they choose condoms or abstinence. She is also a fighter for the underdog.
At heart, she is driven by the passionately held view that young people are often misunderstood and misrepresented.
Miss Bentley was a volunteer long before David Cameron defined the Big Society. Leaving school at 18, she inquired about being a youth worker in Essex, where she grew up.
“I was told I couldn’t be one, because I was still a youth myself,” she laughs. “So I volunteered two evenings a week at youth clubs and did my training while also working as a post lady.
“I loved that, walking in the outdoors and meeting lots of people.”
Though she was never a Guide, she describes her childhood, in a working-class home, as “fabulous”.
She adds: “So much so that I was aware of how lacking some children’s lives could be.”
Surprisingly, her biggest challenge in taking the helm of the Girl Guides is not to recruit more females to the biggest youth organisation in the UK (it boasts 540,000 members) but to mobilise more helpers.
“We have 100,000 volunteers who deliver literally millions of hours per year.
“But women’s lives are different now — 50 years ago we could give 30 hours a week.
“But we need to be more flexible these days, and if people can only give the odd hour, that’s great.”
She was pushy but polite in recruiting famous faces to the FPA, somehow persuading Jo Brand and Clare Balding to host its annual dinner.
So I’m sure, I tell her, that she will have no trouble in finding the Girl Guides a celebrity figurehead akin to Bear Grylls, who represents the Scouts with muddy-faced machismo.
“No,” she chides. “Women and girls can’t be summed up like that. Some love sport. Others hate all that sweating. No one woman represents all of us.”
I remember much heartache and head-scratching at the FPA as we tried to sum up the charity’s many aims in one sentence.
Miss Bentley, however, swiftly changed the strapline from the rather dreary “putting sexual health on the agenda” to “talking sense about sex”.
This forward-thinking clarity sums her up: a no-nonsense, ambitious goal-setter who celebrated her 40th birthday three years ago by cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
She went on the mission with her partner of 11 years, Sean, in aid of the Feham Village Appeal which builds schools in India. So, as she prepares to bring the same energy to the Girl Guides, how would she sum up their aim in an MTV age?
She pauses for a second. “To have fun, be happy and realise your potential.
“I want to help young people understand that… confidence, self-esteem and inner belief is going to determine what they do with their lives,” she says.
That people have criticised her appointment because of her background in family planning has not fazed her.
“That was lazy headline-writing,” she tells me. “The two are not connected.”
What has surprised her, though, is the shock caused by her description of the Guides as “the ultimate feminist organisation”.
“In 1909 the Girl Guides started because a group of girls marched on a Scout meeting and said, 'What about us?’ For over 100 years, we’ve been echoing that same sentiment.
“I find it extraordinary that people are offended by the word 'feminist’ in 2012, but it has been very corrupted.”
But in these inclusive times, she is inevitably having to answer questions about the Guides’ female-only policy. (The Scouts, on the other hand, have included older girls since 1976, with younger girls admitted from 2007.)
“It is right and proper that girls and boys mix across society.
“But girls need freedom to be themselves and have fun with other girls without stereotypes.”
As a mother, I can think of nothing better than several hours a week in which my daughters might spend time with other girls (especially at a cost of roughly £20 for a three-month term), but surely the Guides is just not cool?
“Anyone who thinks Guides isn’t cool needs to look again,” Miss Bentley says with passion.
“Every year we have the Big Gig, a pop concert in which we fill Wembley with the latest acts and Girl Guides. It’s amazing.
“And of course we still do all the outdoor stuff as well — zip-wires, rock-climbing and grass-sledging.”
Although my two girls are only three and 18 months, Miss Bentley teases me that the popularity of the Guides is such that “you need to get their names down now”.
She adds: “We have a 50,000-strong waiting list.”
She reads my mind: “Don’t worry, there’s no uniform to iron! It’s all hoodies and tracksuits now.”
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