Is anyone here a Mason?

[Grockle]

I saw something at an event recently about a local women's mason's group and wondered in any MNers are, or know anyone who is, as Mason? I'm interested in joining but would like to know a bit more... can anyone help?

Thank you

I was invited to join the lady masons once upon a time… it was mainly middle aged / elderly women and being in my thirties I would have been the youngest there by a mile. It sounded like it pretty much consisted of regular lectures on a bunch of different topics (art, history etc), and they obviously do quite a lot of charity work as well. As far as I could tell they had all the pomp and ceremony of the male Freemasons and a lot of the women had partners who were masons as well. I never managed to find out what the secret handshake was though!

Are female masons know as Maisonette's 🤔

The Eastern Star is the female branch of the Masons.

I don’t mean to be rude OP but why would you want to join something that you have little knowledge of and have to ask on here 🤷‍♀️

Catholics are prohibited bt the Catholic Church from joining the Masons.

Sounds like it’s a church without the god bit?

Pretty accurate crossed with the Brownies/scouts. They are a mixed bunch, mostly older, some mixed ethnicity and mixed incomes. Not as secret as everyone thinks. It's a dinner club for men with silly rituals that mean a lot to them

Harmless tbh

The female masons are called the eastern star. The masons and the eastern star mostly fundraise for good causes and socialise. It's just an old name for what used to be a secret order of stone masons who told their grade by handshakes

Type Freemasons and Hillsborough together into a search engine. That will show you one example as to where their covert arse covering leads. Its morally repugnant. Don't go there.

There's a women's lodge near me. It seems to be a more earnest version of the WI with more handshakes and an emphasis of self-improvement.

I did lots of research on the masons years ago. I suspect many of the men joined for an unspoken promise of career advancement. It seemed to be the done thing in certain professions such as some branches of the police. And, of course, it was closed to women so another barrier to advancement.

I believe that members are encouraged to talk about it more these days - so they claim it's a society with secrets rather than a secret society.

From my research, the origins in trade guilds of actual stonemasons seems very tenuous. There's a lot of invented history around freemasonry.

Well that's as maybe but it doesn't mean they can't & don't join

https://hfaf.org/

https://www.owf.org.uk/

I hear they are struggling to recruit new members in some areas, ssh don’t ask me how I know. But it’s a bit last century in it’s attitudes.

The first rule of Mason Club is that nobody talks about Mason Club.

Are you serious

I thought that you had to be asked to join rather than you do the approaching.
There's a women's Lodge in Morley near Leeds.

the masons despise catholics. but that's lovely for your chum.

I was surprised to find out that several senior male colleagues (civil service) were Freemasons.

Even more surprised when a trans woman said they were a freemason someone in their early 30s, apparently they come from a long line in their family in a specific local community in Derbyshire. They saw it more of a social 'belonging' thing than for career advancement. They work in LGBTQ support services. I was very surprised how accepting they were compared to their track record relating to not including natal women.

No they dont! I think youre getting the Masons mixed up with the Orange Lodge. Theyre the ones who are anti Catholic,

The Catholic church don't want Catholics in the Masons but the Masons don't have rules about religion like that. They most certainly aren't anti any religion.

My DH is a master mason (Worshipful Master!) You can be any religion as long as you believe in a supreme being, which admittedly is stretching it a bit for him! He just enjoys the socialising and fund raising.

Posted to soon! He says that some people join thinking it will open doors, business wise, but he reckons more business is done at the cricket club than the local lodge.

Do you think it's acceptable to use colour social standing and age in a derogatory way?

That's what I thought, so the OP's question made me wonder if things had changed.

I did interview a mason for a research project. It was more to do with the admin of the running of their hall. So it wasn't really juicy details. He didn't meet me at the hall though, I went to his house. It was really posh. He was an accountant. Someone in my family was one I think.
They had a massive hall near my house and there would be hundreds of ruddy faced, corpulent middle aged men, wearing tuxedos, and a terrible smell of school dinners wafting from the kitchens.
It's closed down now. I think the only way to infiltrate it would be to become a waitress?!