Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017

Terminology
Two approaches to freemasonry

When it comes to terminology, the reader might already have observed that I prefer to spell ’freemasonry’ (’masonic’ and ’lodge’) with a small initial letter. This runs contrary to conventional usage in dictionaries and I have tried to avoid confusions resulting from this choice of spelling. The reason is quite simple: freemasonry is not a unified or unifying phenomenon in history, and it appears in many different and heterogeneous varieties. No one owns the ultimate definition of its meaning. Although modern freemasonry now includes female lodges, throughout most of its history, the fraternity has been predominantly male. For this reason, I will refer to freemasons as male, with the understanding that until the last century, there were few exceptions to this rule.