Craftsmen’s guild changes its name after outcry from ‘embarrassed’ female members

A GUILD has dropped the word “men” from its name to make it sound more “inclusive” after female members said they had felt awkward over its title.

The Devon Guild of Craftsmen has killed off its “outdated” name and is now known as MAKE Southwest.

Louis Victory, chairman of the board of trustees, said the terms “guild” and “craftsmen” needed a 21st-century rebrand. “Guild was very out of date and craftsmen is pretty out of date as well,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Statistically most of our practising craft makers are women rather than men.”

He added: “The name change is to catch up with our historical practice, which has always been complete equality of the sexes in membership – [with] more women makers than men and women in senior positions on the charity’s board and as directors.

“As a retired architect who has had to watch the painfully slow growth of gender equality in my [profession] and related professions, I have loved entering the world of crafts where sexism hardly seems to have existed.”

He said the reaction to the name change had been “generally very favourable” – and several of the organisation’s female members had welcomed the change, with one saying she had been embarrassed to be a “craftsman”.

Responding to an Instagram post of the charity’s name-change announcement, Kate Lyons-miller, an artist, said: “Brilliant … I was so proud to be elected a member, but so embarrassed to say it was of the craftsmen.”

Bee Jackson agreed, saying: “Much better, far more inclusive.”

The charity consulted more than 200 members about the plan, asking them to send in suggestions for a new name. The trustees then voted on the move.

Janet Wingate, vice-president and trustee of the group and a member for more than 40 years, said the name had been contentious for 30 years.

She said: “We all felt the name had become rather old-fashioned and wanted to update it. We’d just been through a bit of a rejig, so we changed the name at the same time.”

Being described as a “craftsman”, however, was not something that she, personally, found offensive.

“I never minded being a craftsman. I was chairman – I did seven years altogether – and it never bothered me in the least being called a chairman because it wasn’t a sexist term, it was a title.

“I did always call myself chairman, so I didn’t have a problem with it.

“But I’m totally behind the change now. I was very much in favour of it.

“The original name was outdated and we wanted to be a bit more contemporary and up to date.”