Equality 2018
The Freemasons are now going to allow women!
Their secretive society has been male-only for centuries. Now the Freemasons are to allow women members — but only if they were men when they joined.
The United Grand Lodge of England, founded in 1717, has issued guidance to its 200,000 members that “a Freemason who after initiation ceases to be a man does not cease to be a Freemason”.
Its “gender reassignment policy” says that anyone wishing to join must be male but once admitted can remain a member as a woman. Anyone who has become a man can also apply.
Daaaaaaaaaaamn is that enlightened or what? Open to all at last!
Well, except women. But other than that…
I have the vaguest of memories from the very distant past of having seen a TV programme in black and white about the Freemasons and all their weird doings (not very weird, only extremely eccentric) which described an incident in some past century (I think the 17th, despite the information above) in which a woman spied on certain proceedings and was discovered. And what did those horrid secretive people do? Actually, they didn’t dump her body in the Thames (or the Thanet or the Wash or wherever); they made her a Freemason: this was the only way they could think of to keep her quiet about all their mysterious goings on.
As it happens, I have been the victim of several Freemasons: several of the men in our church choir. They took me and the rest of the boys (this really was a long time ago) to one of their secret meetings. They did not allow us to enter their hall until the denouement, but in the meanwhile they provided christmas pies and sandwiches and sang “God Save the Queen”. They declared various charitable donations and did other boring business which I have forgotten. We had to be quiet, you see, so we could perfectly well hear what was going on. Then they let us in. They listened to all our carols and applauded. One year they offered me a bouquet (I was the soloist but being a boy naturally declined the honour). Then we went home.
My daughter once told me that somewhere in the Med there is an island inhabited entirely by men and upon which no woman is allowed to set foot. I do not think that this could be on a par with an Oxford lawn that no woman should oppress by toe or heel, because islands are much more extreme: if you have to find a desert island to get away from women you must really need to do it. Lawns are mere bits of grass, and universities are full of men who think they are better than the rest of the planet, however stupid they actually are. But I like to think that if people really really want to hide away from certain other people, they ought to be allowed to do it. We have autists and depressives and all sorts of people who just need…well, it seems obvious to me. The injustice is not that women are not allowed to become Freemasons but that society prevents women from establishing their own Freemasonry. Or Freemasonries. Please let people do as they please, within reason, and let “people” include all people: just, all people.
This makes literally no sense under any scheme. Its not even the super-woke “trans women are women” thing, because then non-trans women would be allowed to join too. But it’s not saying “trans women are really men because sex changes don’t count” since they’re letting trans men join.
A little of this, a little of that, and maybe it will all work out, eh?
But, Gordon, I have to say – you’re mixing things up just as the Freemasons are. It’s not about leaving people alone because some people like solitude. The Freemasons are a group. Leaving the Freemasons alone to exclude women all they like is not comparable to leaving individuals alone because that’s their preference.
And no, you’re wrong about what the injustice is, because groups like the Freemasons (and the Freemasons) are power centers. Systematically excluding women from groups where men get together to make deals and promote each other and run the world is indeed an injustice.
Ophelia, yes, I see that you are right about the injustice. I had not seen it in that way, but I do know, now that I think about it, that many very powerful men have been Freemasons, and that the organisation contains many such people. I tend to see it as I have experienced it and historically as an underground society for mutual support persecuted for centuries by the Church.
When you say “group”, I suppose you mean a pressure-group (?), an organisation intended to exert power in the interests of its members. But consider that this sort of thing is what any secretive organisation may become if it draws the right members. The power comes first, surely. Which in our world would exclude women from the first.
So I suppose (I am thinking aloud) that a men’s group must always be an injustice, because men make deals and support each other and (some of them, at least) run the world. I cannot help thinking that this is an unjust conclusion.
Not necessarily a pressure group; it can work the same way with social groups. Women are often shut out of male social gatherings at work too, not necessarily officially but they’re just not included. I can’t claim credit for the insight, it’s something feminists have been pointing out for years. Social customs that seem harmless and merely a matter of voluntary association can in practice disadvantage people not included – it works the same way for race of course.
Yes I suppose in some sense it’s unfair that men can’t form men-only groups without thereby committing an injustice, because men make deals and support each other and (some of them, at least) run the world, but…I guess I think the opposing injustice is more urgent. Maybe the point stands out better if you swap “white people” for “men” in those sentences?
To put it another way, it has to do with what’s called “networking” (not one of my favorite words). Men combine friendship with networking, so if they exclude women from the former they exclude them from the latter, and since it’s still mostly men doing the hiring and promoting…there you go.
Gordon, I was brought up in the Freemasons – all the men in my family were and are members, going all the way to the coveted 33rd degree. They were active, they were leaders in the group, and they promoted the Masons everywhere they went.
Women? They have a group auxiliary, known as the Eastern Star. All the women in my family were basically required to join (I did not want to, and left as soon as I moved out of my parents house and no longer had to fear retribution). The women’s group, the Eastern Star, requires the following: (1) The woman must be related to a Freemason; (2) Men must be allowed to join the Eastern Star (it isn’t really a woman’s auxiliary at all, because it is for men and women); and (3) No meeting of the Eastern Star (or the Rainbow, the “masons” for teenage girls) can be permitted without at least one male (a Mason) present.
The Rainbow Girls and the Eastern Star teach that women’s place is to be wife, mother, sister, and daughter. There is no room for scientist or lawyer or politician or riveter or auto mechanic…or anything else. Belonging to men is a key feature of the groups. But they aren’t even allowed to get together to talk about the men, because the men must be present to observe and control the proceedings. Oh, the men don’t play and real role in the day to day workings of Rainbow (though Eastern Star has several offices for males), but their very presence in the room acts as a form of control.
This group promotes male dominance at every node. It is about males and more males, and teaching females to be subservient to males.
I did not know that. Jeezus.
Yes, you are quite right. The fact is that it is a difficult balance. All networks exclude. I sometimes think that part of the point of networks is to exclude, but I believe that the reality is that networks necessarily exclude and this is only a bad thing either to the extent that networkers take pleasure in the excluding or that the networks are intended to form part of some kind of oppression. I don’t think I’ve put that very well. Networks may accidentally oppress, or they may be a tool of oppression. A network may do both at once. The best thing I can say at this moment is that it seems very complicated. Perhaps another way to put it is that support may be desirable, but it can also be invidious.
As to social customs, the problem is that custom is sanctified. Morality (the root of the word means “custom”, “manner”, “way”) is assumed to be ethical. Custom sanctifies behaviour. Custom tells us what is right. Most of the bad things we do are unconscious. I think that most of the bad things we do are unintended and justified afterwards. I’m afraid I’m making this fearfully complicated. I mean, we’re basically emotion and impulse, and sometimes a bit of rational thought.
I have just read, in Dexter Dias’s book The Ten Types of Human, that Michelle “Miller, the author of weblog The Underwriting, … famously claimed to easily step into the head of her male counterparts by (1) shutting off 80 per cent of her brain, then (2) committing half of what was left to thinking about sex”. Sadly, I think that her idea is pretty much correct. Even more sadly, I think that women are not so different. Paying attention to our brains is hard, especially if we have to do it all the time.
Sorry, that last was addressed to Ophelia. I have only just seen your post, iknklast.
iknklast, I am sorry, that is horrible. Everywhere one goes, it seems, we learn that women are the property of men. Is it not the underside of every institution? Is there a single one in which this is not assumed? This makes your point, of course, Ophelia.
I remember reading somewhere that under British law, a male peer who transitions to “female” can still inherit, but a female who transitions to “male” cannot. So a transman can’t get the Dukedom claimed by his younger brother.
This article discusses the second case.
https://www.tatler.com/article/trans-toffs