In the 21st century, why does Freemasonry still discriminate against women ?, page 3
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ATS Members have flagged this thread 2 times


reply posted on 23-1-2011 @ 08:22 PM by fordrew
reply to post by Sherlock Holmes


sure I can start you on some track... I do not know any reasons why

www.medicaleducationonline.org...


www.google.com...=en&sugexp=evnsp&xhr=t&q=can+women+keep+secrets&cp=11&qe=Y2FuIHdvbWVuIGtl&qesig=Yh-IBJGPuxIJaDotd6lu6w&pkc=AFgZ2tk28JyeH_HzoS MTf7r-cFfGsKFsqUpQcPzw_rsFogTQMNQdbYNTEJYZSvPgXBkgglQMgf6qntx_RxLu5Z8A1bwsPns6Sg&pf=p&sclient=psy&safe=off&site=&source=hp&aq=0&aqi=&aql=f&oq=can+wome n+ke&pbx=1&fp=241062ed1d424d73


www.dailymail.co.uk...


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edit on 23-1-2011 by fordrew because: (no reason given)




reply posted on 23-1-2011 @ 08:38 PM by Sherlock Holmes
Originally posted by TheBorg
Order of the Eastern Star is what is known as a "concordant body", and it is in NO WAY clandestine. I think what you're referring to is what's call Co-Masonry, in which both men and women are able to join. These Lodges are not recognized by The Free and Accepted Masons of any nation. Masons are allowed into any concordant body, including Eastern Star.


Yes, my apologies in referring to the Order as ''clandestine''. I was mistaken in my understanding of the relationship that it had with mainstream Masonry.

However, the fact that regular Masons can join the Order of the Eastern Star does not alter the fact that a female member of this order can not join regular Freemasonry.

Sadly, the bigoted and prejudiced hypocrisy of Freemasonry can not brush off this fact.

Originally posted by TheBorg
One point that I'd like to make here though... There are Sororities out there too. You know that, right? Men cannot join sororities, just like women cannot join fraternities.


This is still the ''two wrongs make a right'' logical fallacy.



Originally posted by TheBorg
Let me end by asking you a question. Why would you be interested in joining the Freemasons anyway? Just to see what goes on behind the closed doors? I only ask because I'm genuinely curious.


I'm a man, and I'd be interested in joining the Freemasons when they enter the 21st century, and when they cease the bigoted criteria of their organisation.

I think the ''ideals'' that their members pay lip-service to would be something worthy ( if true ), and I wouldn't mind being involved in an organisation with that ethos and philosophy.

edit on 23-1-2011 by Sherlock Holmes because: (no reason given)


reply posted on 23-1-2011 @ 09:01 PM by Sherlock Holmes
Originally posted by getreadyalready
There is a Gold's Gym here in town, and they also own a "Women's World" that is exclusively for women. Recently, they closed all the little daycare areas in the Gold's Gyms in town, and they expanded and improved the area at Women's World.

Big Problem! I am not a WOMAN! And I needed that daycare at the Gold's!


Men and women only gyms are based on privacy reasons, due to the physical nature of the activities that are conducted in them.

I don't see any reason why you couldn't find a daycare area somewhere else.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I've also noticed that I am unwelcome in the Women's restrooms where they have multiple stalls, little flower arrangements, and a much better smell, instead, I am required to stand at a trough with 10 other men and see smell all kinds of nasty stuff.


In an ideal and mature world, we would have unisex toilets.

However, in reality, humans are very sexually orientated, and any confined building where men and women get their bits out in public will lead to sexual tension and become an attractive area for perverts and deviants.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I'm just saying, to take a cue from your title, "In the 21st Century" why do people still believe that everything is supposed to be absolutely equal? It is ludicrous. There are plenty of clubs and organizations that are designed specifically for men, or women, or senior citizens. Hell, I don't like the little sign outside the Chick Fil A playground that says I am too tall to play. Why is that OK? Why should the kids get to have all the fun?


Freemasonry is ( supposedly ) a worthy and charitable organisation. There should be absolutely no reason to prohibit anybody from joining the society as long as they fulfil the regulations that are based on personal choice, not genetics.

It is telling that so far - 3 pages in to the thread - I have not received one logical reason that defends the sexual discrimination in Freemasonry.

All the ''arguments'' have been based on logical fallacies.


Originally posted by getreadyalready
I'm just saying, why can't us Mason's have a "boys club?" If we have to change, then everyone has to change, I get to work out at Women's World, play on the playground at Chick Fil A and use the nicer smelling women's rooms!


You're not comparing like with like.


reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 12:22 AM by JoshNorton
Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes
Yes, in the same way that a society has the constitutional right to prohibit blacks, Jews and gays from their membership.

The problem arises from the fact that an organisation that bases their membership criteria along genetic discrimination, such as race, gender, sexuality etc, are usually reviled, and justifiably scorned and ridiculed.
Guess what? Here you are, scorning and ridiculing us. Feel better now?

Men and women only gyms are based on privacy reasons, due to the physical nature of the activities that are conducted in them.
The same can be said of Masonic initiations...

However, in reality, humans are very sexually orientated, and any confined building where men and women get their bits out in public will lead to sexual tension and become an attractive area for perverts and deviants.
Again, the same could be said of Masonic meetings. Except for the bit about private bits out in public. But the rest of your statement holds ground... if Masonry were coed, the distractions of attraction to other members would detract from the lessons at hand. You've poo poohed the fraternity/sorority angle. How about boys schools and girls schools? Against those on principle? I know you've tried to draw a line between "kids" and "adults" earlier in the thread, but to use your own stance, is there an "ethical" reason why a distinction should be made for one age group being segregated by gender, but not another?

And since "ethics" is the word you keep bandying about, let's hear from you precisely what's "unethical" about Masons not letting women in their club? From a consequentialist view, what is the negative outcome from not allowing women in the fraternity? Or do you take the deontological stance in ethics, where the consequence is immaterial, but it's the rules that got you there that matter? I take it you're not in the postmodernist camp where ethics are relative to the circumstance...you seem to be arguing this from a more black & white dichotomy.

Ultimately, so far you've said it's unethical, but you haven't told us why or how.


reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 04:49 AM by KilgoreTrout
Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes
This is what I thought, but I didn't want to hit them where it hurts.

The religious-like devotion that so many Americans have for their constitution, despite the fact that the ''rights'' that were outlined in it did not apply to women or blacks, is something that I shake my head to on a daily basis on ATS.

Version 1.0 of the US Constitution in desperate need of an update so as it can effectively run on the 2011 OS !


Well this is it, and I have a limited understanding of all this...the Constitution has been variously ratified, over one thing or another, but this one, the ERA, has been a matter of discussion and petitioning (or whatever it is that the US do) for over 80 years and still hasn't had approval. The stock reply is that it is not necessary, women already have equal rights in pay and working conditions. They had to fight for each one of those individual rights, including the one that said that it was lawful to force his wife to have sex, those cases were still coming up in the US courts in the 1980s. Much resources were placed in the 1950/60s in the hands of the Feminist organisations to ignore the ERA in favour of petitioning for employment equality. These small, incremental victories, provided instant gratification and the illusion of equality and caused a rift in the women's suffrage movement that practically meant three wasted decades in the real fight.

The Constitution is touted as this great document, and yet, it denies roughly 50% of it's population equality. There have been a number of ratifications, why not this one, if, as AugustusMasonicus states, women already have rights that equate to equality anyway? Why not a simple change of wording? What is the big deal? Because clearly there is something that is fundamentally resistent to this acknowledgement.

I watched the film 'Born Yesterday' a couple of weeks ago, the original not the I imagine apalling remake with Don Johnson...it covers this point beautifully, as well as giving a little guidance on the finer points of the history of US governance...and how it's corruption works...in context with a woman's status within that structure and how knowledge liberates her from the ties that bind her...and it's a romantic comedy too, hehe...great film!!

If you're feeling adventurous...

www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by KilgoreTrout
It's the principle, though.

I'm a man, and I've had two potential opportunities to join the Masons in the last 5 years, but I declined for this reason only.

It wouldn't sit with my conscience.


I hear they do a lot of great work for charity. That is your decision and having personal principles is a good thing. I am not one to judge, as I am not in any sense of the word a 'joiner'. The knowledge of the Freemason's is readily available, so no need for me to join in that respect, books being largely preferable to 'gatherings'. The history is interesting though but more in the before they went all esoteric, the Guild system on which it is based, which was entirely, apart from the Mercantile side of it, egalitarian up until the Middle Ages.

I am currently up to my ears in the build up to the Spanish War of Succession, which was a trade war concealed behind a territorial dispute. The Chartered Companies of the City of London that emerged when Cromwell sold us out to the Capitalists, clearly demonstrate the Noble tradition of male lineage permeating down into the artisan guilds to the gradual exclusion of all women. By the end of the 17th century women were excluded from the Guilds and social advancement for women was dependent solely on males with the peak of women's bondage, coinciding with the peak of the Trans-atlantic trade.

When speculative Freemasonry was devised, it was done so by a class of men who had never touched trowel and mortar, but it retains, with some Renaissance and Enlightenment flourishes, the basic structure of advancement, based on aquired skill and knowledge that a mason or builder would progress through. Which is where all the geometry in the lectures comes in. What speculative Freemasonry became, possibly, according to some, was a means by which to assimilate colonies into British Imperialism. Preparing them for civil service, much in the same way the Mercantile Guild's Board structure prepared the way for Diplomacy and Ambassadorship. One way or another, you find, or at least I do, that it all comes down to economics.

Either way, what we have now, is an archaic beast settling into it's death throes. Failure to adapt to a new reality combined with a lack of (real) women, can only lead to extinction. Same can be said for the US though.


reply posted on 24-1-2011 @ 06:52 AM by getreadyalready
reply to post by Sherlock Holmes


I disagree. I don't see the difference. #1, they don't make daycares where I can drop my kids off for 1 hour, and even if they did make them, it would require a stop to drop them off, then a drive to the gym, then a drive back to pick them up. Why should the women have the convenience of daycare in house, and the men not have it?

As for Masonry.....it is not discriminatory, because there is Eastern Star for women. They can learn identical principles there. It is only a tradition, honestly there probably is no need for it to be men only, but it always has been, and it is a nice escape from the coed world for a little while. The women can get that escape at their private little gym.

Why should we change it? You asked Masons to tell why it is still this way, but I ask you why not? Don't give me "it's the 21st century," because what does that really have to do with anything? Tell me, what significant need do women have that Masonry is necessary to fulfill? Even for men, not everyone is allowed. It is an exclusive club, and it demands that you voluntarily approach, then be unanimously selected. So, not all men get in either.

Just for the record:
Women Only
Girls Only: The Growing Trend of Women Only Clubs and Organisations
Justice Sotomayor's Exclusive Women's Only Club
Women's Only Insurance!
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