Post by Tamrin on Aug 13, 2009 7:35:41 GMT 10
Women and freemasonry since the Enlightenment
Conference organized at Bordeaux University
and Musée d’Aquitaine, June 17-18- 19, 2010
[/b][/size]Conference organized at Bordeaux University
and Musée d’Aquitaine, June 17-18- 19, 2010
[Excerpts - Call for Papers, Lumières Nature Société, (via Masonic Life Forum) - Linked Above][/center]
Today women are still largely absent from Masonic lodges. Yet few rational arguments can be summoned to account for such an exclusion. The argument of tradition, which is the most frequently put forward, only holds for Anderson’s Constitutions as no such explicit ban against women can be found in the Old Charges. The significance of Elisabeth Aldworth St Leger’s initiation by an Irish Lodge is probably more symbolical than historical as it was a single occurrence never repeated. Yet the event was never denied by the Irish masons at the time, although it probably deterred the “brethren” from renewing the experience and mostly reinforced their convictions on the issue of female initiation. Women however did enter the lodges afterwards, first in the lodges of adoption, and later in co-masonry as well as specific female lodges.
How far can one speak of Masonic universalism, how far does gender inform the Masonic issue? Our purpose is twofold. We shall address the problem of women’s exclusion under its various guises and try to uncover some of the motivations, and we shall also concentrate on the specificity of female freemasonry both in time and space, from the earliest lodges to the modern ones, in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Conversely we shall wonder how feminist criticism has viewed women’s freemasonry, from the lodges of adoption to contemporary lodges. We welcome different approaches, and would like the historical and geographical scopes to be broad enough to allow for a better understanding of differences, common points and evolutions.