The conversation darted and shifted among the nearly 200 businesswomen who filled The Citadel's cavernous alumni hall.
They gathered at a networking event put on by the Charleston-based Center for Women under the pretext of business. But the chatter quickly strayed from purely professional topics into personal lives, the quality of nearby schools, local restaurant recommendations, settling in after relocating to Charleston, nightmare bosses, the richness of the chocolate truffles being passed around, then back to business again.
Most conversation ended with a quick shuffling of business cards.
Local women business leaders are increasingly seeking out these types of female-oriented networking events, which has triggered the startup of several new industry-specific organizations under such names as Women in Defense and Commercial Real Estate Women.
As with any business group, the ultimate goal is to help members spread the word about their skills, but women tend to take the conversation to other areas. And some say that female-only events are more relaxed and provide a bit of relief from the historically male-dominated business community.
"Not to sound too trite, but it's time for the 'good ole girl' network," said Jennet Robinson Alterman, who heads the Center for Women. "Instead of fighting to get into the 'good ole boy' network, let's create our own."
Different feel
Professional groups that cluster around an industry or region are nothing new, but female-oriented organizations are becoming more popular as women leave the corporate ranks and start their own businesses.
The most recent major study of women-owned business growth shows that between 1997 and 2002, the number of women-owned businesses in South Carolina jumped 16 percent to 76,831. For the Charleston area, the growth was more than double that rate, at 37 percent.
Women who form small companies with only one or two employees use the women-geared networking events to connect with other professionals.
"When they were in the corporate environment, they had all these people to relate to," said Dorothy Perrin Moore, a Citadel professor who has written two books about women entrepreneurship. "Now, there's no way to run down the hall and ask a question."
Alterman gave an example of a local accountant who left her firm to raise two young children and start her own home-based operation. She relies on local networking events to recruit new employees and drum up new clients.
Women still join the local chapters of most traditional networking or business-oriented service groups, such as the local chambers of commerce and Rotary Clubs. But they're increasingly drawn to join -- and to start -- additional groups for themselves.
Women interviewed by The Post and Courier struggled to describe why they gravitate toward female-only groups, careful not to irritate the gender divide in business. But most agreed that these types of groups had a markedly different feel.
April Nadeau, a former defense contractor who recently switched to selling embroidery and screen-printed products, carries membership cards for three local defense industry groups, one of which is geared toward women.
Though colleagues in her Women in Defense group share the same professional background, those gatherings have a more laid-back atmosphere, she said. Accordingly, women dress more casually for those events.
"If I had to put my finger on it, I'd say it feels less formal and a bit more relaxed," said Nadeau, whose former industry is heavily populated by men who served in the military before joining the private sector.
Started a year ago, Women in Defense isn't the newest club of its kind anymore. That distinction goes to a Charleston chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women. Technically, the group can't even begin taking formal members until early next year, said its president, local architect Anita King.
Officials at the College of Charleston helped jump-start the group, which has 180 names on its mailing list, because some female students in the college's real estate program were having a tough time relating to male mentors in the local real estate community, King said.
"A lot of the girls felt uncomfortable in their meetings with older men," she said, adding that women prefer to do business with other women.
That disconnect clouded some students' vision of working in that industry someday.
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By the numbers
13,549: Number of women-owned businesses in the three-county area.
37.6 percent: Dorchester County businesses that are owned by women (highest rate of the three counties).
26.2 percent: South Carolina businesses that are women-ownen.
16 percent: Growth in the number of women-owned businesses throughout South Carolina between 1997 and 2002 (the latest available figures).
Source: U.S. Census
Seeking connections
Carol Williams, who founded East Cooper Entrepreneurial Women, said her group operates on a more simple concept: fun. The group's lighthearted meetings have led women to treat their participation as another social activity -- except with a business theme.
"They love their neighbors, they love their soccer-mom friends, but they wanted to connect with other business women," Williams said.
Since the group formed in mid-2007, it has grown "leaps and bounds" to about 70 participants, she added. The club now has three coffee meetings and a luncheon each month.
Her group doesn't have the formalities of some long-standing clubs that might keep official meeting minutes, spell out agendas and have strict protocols. The emphasis tends to be on what members can do for each other.
"My gut tells me that in a male-dominated networking session, the men are more interested in what they have to offer as opposed to what they might need, whereas women are more open to saying what they need in an all-female environment because there is an understanding there that our lives are complicated," Alterman said.
Take local public relations specialist Claire Gibbons, who stood up from her assigned networking table at the Center for Women event and pitched her skills at helping business owners promote their messages. She then asked if anyone at the table could help her find a lawyer who understands how to draft contracts.
At the same table, a real estate agent traded cards with a woman who makes custom wooden cabinetry. A woman who runs screening and background checks on nannies wanted to know more about the videographer who could post testimonials to business Web sites.
But some conversations that night strayed from strictly business to travel, family life and even recommendations of skin-care products.
Moore found that business women tend to engage in broader-based conversations while she researched networking trends in Atlanta in the 1990s. In a series of focus groups, she found that the men limited their discussions to commerce, while the women didn't.
That more collegial approach, which contrasts with the stereotype of the harsh, highly competitive female professional, could stem from the common understanding among women that in the business world they've historically been in the minority, Moore said.
"You move away from 'I'm competing with you for something in this company' to 'I'm competing with all the males who are out there in this business,' " she said.
Alterman of the Center for Women said a greater sense of camaraderie arises from the barriers that women face, such as under-representation in politics, less access to adequate health coverage and the wage gap that exists between them and men.
"It starts to show a very clear picture that women have to struggle here, so our goal as an agency is to help women succeed," she said.
Reach Katy Stech at 937-5549 or kstech@postandcourier.com.
Club assortment
A sampling of the local groups that provide support for businesswomen:
National Association of Women Business Owners.
East Cooper Entrepreneurial Women.
Women in Defense.
Charleston Women in International Trade.
American Business Women's Association.
Women@Work.
Center for Women.
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