Update: As of Friday, Feb. 1, the Boy Scouts has been officially rebranded as "Scouts BSA" [1] and will allow girls to join its ranks (though it unofficially began welcoming girls last year following its 2017 announcement and has seen over 77,000 girls join so far). "I could not be more excited for what this means for the next generation of leaders in our nation," Chief Scout Executive Michael B. Surbaugh said in a statement. "Through Scouts BSA, more young people than ever before — young women and men — will get to experience the benefits of camaraderie, confidence, resilience, trustworthiness, courage and kindness through a time-tested program that has been proven to build character and leadership."

Original Story: Got a little girl at home who's been begging to become a Boy Scout? Her once-unlikely dream is about to become reality: the Boy Scouts of America [2] officially announced today that it's letting girls take the oath starting in 2018.

"The historic decision comes after years of receiving requests from families and girls," stated a press release from the BSA [3]. "The organization evaluated the results of numerous research efforts, gaining input from current members and leaders, as well as parents and girls who've never been involved in Scouting, to understand how to offer families an important additional choice in meeting the character development needs of all their children."

In making the decision, BSA released a questionnaire [4] to parents regarding after-school activities and the response was overwhelming: 90 percent of parents surveyed expressed interest in signing up their daughters for a program like Cub Scouts and 87 percent were interested in programs similar to Boy Scouts.

Although the Boy Scouts organization has been running special coed programs since the '70s, the organization has yet to allow girls to actually join a "den," or unit of scouts. But starting in August, any kid 7 to 10 years old can sign up for the Cub Scout program.

And if you have a daughter who's already aged out of Cub Scouts, no problem. BSA is planning on introducing more inclusive programs for older kids in the upcoming year and will even let them earn the rank of Eagle Scout, just like their male counterparts.

It also hopes its new recruiting guidelines will mean more racial and ethnic diversity across the board. "Additionally, many groups currently underserved by Scouting, including the Hispanic and Asian communities, prefer to participate in activities as a family," said the release.

All we can say is that's one huge step for girl power.