Women in Freemasonry: The Material Aspect

Regular Lodges of Freemasons such as the United Grand Lodge of England have made it clear that Freemasons are free to explain that yes, women are accepted as Freemasons. However, this is something of a foil, as there is no formally recognized Lodge accepting women. There are two such fully female Lodges in England (The Order of Women Freemasons and The Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons) which are admittedly regular in every aspect except that they are female, but they are not even allowed formal contact with regular male Lodges. Of course, there are Orders such as that of the Eastern Star, but these are considered by traditional, male Lodges as simply mirroring Freemasonry and not as equals. So why, considering that Freemasonry has changed a good deal since its inceptions in the twelfth century, are women still not considered as equals?

First off, every Freemason must swear in his obligations to never help in the making of a woman into a Mason. Some men consider this to be too powerfully binding and unchangeable to overcome, whatever their personal beliefs.
Secondly, Freemasonry is a fraternity. If there exist side by side female organizations, why should the men include the women, since they have their own possibilities?

Perhaps most importantly, mainstream Masonic bodies follow the regulations laid down during the 17th century, one of which is the strict exclusion of women.

I'm interested in further exploring the reasons for excluding women, in addition to finding things that have changed in mainstream Freemasonry which might necessarily have been considered quite as strange as introducing women. I'll also be researching current opinions of important figures in modern Freemasonry.

Feminist Oppresion

Although I had never really thought about the feminist or anti-feminist values of Evangelical Christians, the point made in the Conclusion by Griffith really resonated with me. I hear a lot of anti-feminist rhetoric, and it comes from women just as often as men. I think the underbearing thought is that feminists are pushing women to be a certain way just as much as male chauvinism is pushing them. There is more than one way for a woman to feel liberation in her life, and what feminists usually push is a very specific way of going about it. Perhaps there are other methods of achieving happiness - this seems to be what the female Muslim characters in The Taqwacores understand. What outsiders often miss is this feeling of freedom within a different set of rules. Rabeya understood and embraced the Burqa, but Lynn couldn't escape her feminist set of rules defining feminine happiness. She rebelled against society in the more typical way - she had dreadlocks instead of a more typical feminine haircut, she listened to rock music, and she approached sex in a recreational way. She simply couldn't understand that perhaps Rabeya's road to liberation, as conservative as it was, could be just as empowering. She didn't want to dawn the Burqa, even though as we saw, Rabeya found a great degree of liberation through wearing (and not wearing) it.

Feminist thought, in the end, is just one way of going about female liberation. Evangelical women as much as Muslim women find their happiness through ways, although similarly potent, that a feminist wouldn't understand.