Women and the Elks: History of Inclusion and Policy Changes

For most of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks' existence, the question of women's membership wasn't really a question — it was a settled matter, closed before it was ever formally opened. The BPOE was chartered as a fraternal organization for men, full stop. What followed over the next 130-plus years was a slow, uneven, and sometimes contentious renegotiation of that founding assumption. This page traces how the Elks' policies toward women evolved, where the current rules draw their lines, and what the practical landscape looks like for women affiliated with the Order today.

Definition and scope

The BPOE, founded in New York City in 1868, was constituted from the outset as a male-only fraternal order. That single structural choice shaped everything downstream — the ritual, the lodge culture, the membership rolls, and the political debates that would eventually force the organization to revisit its own bylaws.

"Inclusion" in the Elks context doesn't mean one thing — it means at least three distinct things, and conflating them causes confusion. First, there's auxiliary membership, which refers to women participating in lodge-affiliated groups without holding full BPOE membership. Second, there's associate or social membership, a category created by some lodges to give non-men access to lodge facilities and events without voting rights. Third, there's full fraternal membership, which carries ritual participation, voting privileges, and eligibility for elected office. The Elks have moved through all three categories in stages, and not uniformly across every lodge.

The full picture of where the Elks stand on membership structure and eligibility is covered at the Elks Authority home, which organizes the organization's policies across their major dimensions.

How it works

The governing authority for BPOE membership policy sits with the Grand Lodge — the national body that meets annually at the Elks Grand Lodge Convention and holds final authority over the Constitution and Statutes of the Order. Individual lodges operate within those rules but cannot unilaterally extend or restrict membership categories beyond what Grand Lodge authorizes.

The pivotal moment came in 1995, when the Grand Lodge voted to allow women into full membership. That vote — passed at the Grand Lodge session that year — removed the male-only language from the BPOE's governing documents. Individual lodges were then permitted, but not required, to admit women as full members. The result was a patchwork: some lodges immediately opened their rolls, others moved slowly, and a meaningful minority resisted for years afterward.

The mechanism works like this:

  1. Grand Lodge sets the eligibility floor. Since 1995, the Constitution and Statutes no longer prohibit women from membership.
  2. Individual lodges vote on applications. A prospective member — male or female — must be proposed by a current member, investigated by a lodge committee, and approved by ballot.
  3. Ritual and officer eligibility follow membership. Women who hold full membership are eligible for all lodge offices, including Exalted Ruler (the lodge's top elected position).
  4. Auxiliary organizations remain separate. The Elks National Association of Auxiliaries, which predates the 1995 change by decades, continues to operate as a distinct affiliated body.

For the full breakdown of what membership entails, Elks membership requirements covers the eligibility criteria that apply to all applicants.

Common scenarios

The lived experience of women in the Elks organization falls into recognizable patterns, depending on when and where someone became involved.

Pre-1995 affiliation through auxiliaries. Women affiliated with the Elks before the Grand Lodge vote almost always did so through ladies' auxiliaries — lodge-affiliated groups that organized social events, charitable activities, and support functions. These auxiliaries had their own officers, dues structures, and meeting schedules, but no formal standing within BPOE governance.

Post-1995 full membership. Women who joined after 1995 hold identical standing to male members. They appear on lodge membership rolls, participate in ritual ceremonies, hold elected and appointed office, and are eligible for Elks membership benefits including access to the Elks National Foundation's scholarship and veterans programs.

Associate or social membership. Some lodges, particularly in earlier decades, created intermediate categories — allowing women to use lodge facilities and attend events without holding voting membership. The specifics varied by lodge and era, and this category has largely been superseded by the full membership option.

Family connections. Spouses and adult relatives of Elks members frequently participate in lodge social life without holding any formal membership category. This informal participation has always existed alongside the formal policy debates.

Decision boundaries

The 1995 Grand Lodge vote resolved the constitutional question but left operational decisions to individual lodges. That distinction matters in practice.

What Grand Lodge decided: Women are eligible for full membership in the BPOE. No lodge may bar women from membership on the basis of sex alone under current BPOE governing documents.

What lodges still control: The blackball system — where a small number of negative votes can block a membership application — applies to all candidates regardless of sex. A lodge that is culturally resistant to female membership can, in theory, exercise that resistance through the ballot process without formally invoking sex as a criterion. Whether that occurs, and how often, is not tracked in any public BPOE data.

What auxiliaries control: The Elks National Association of Auxiliaries operates under its own governance structure. Membership in an auxiliary does not confer BPOE membership, and full BPOE membership does not automatically connect a woman to an auxiliary.

The contrast with the Elks racial integration history is instructive. The BPOE's racial exclusion policies, which persisted formally until 1973, were removed through a similar Grand Lodge mechanism — a constitutional change that shifted the eligibility rule while leaving enforcement to local lodge culture. Both episodes illustrate how national fraternal organizations navigate the gap between written policy and practiced reality.

References

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