It’s about time. Actually, it’s really quite overdue: France’s oldest Grand Lodge, the Grand Orient de France, has so far not prevented its Lodges from initiating amongst its ranks women. Presumably such move will be explicitly supported at its next meeting in September.
Of course, women have been in Freemasonry for quite some time, with the most broadly spanned GL allowing both men and women being the over hundred-year-old International Order of Co-Freemasonry (Le Droit Humain or ‘LDH’).
It seems strange that it has taken so long for what should really be an obvious step for Freemasonry. After all, there are no legitimate Freemasonic reasons for excluding women from the ranks of so many Lodges, each either fearful of repercussions of loss of ‘amity’ relations with other GLs, or holding on to a view that regresses to pre-equitable days.
UGLE is now in a strange position: it had the opportunity of being a leader in taking this step. Now, whatever it decides, it will be seen as being mere follower: either following the steps of GOdF; or following the reticence from more bigotted views.
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