Meet Sonya | Captured at a Wine, Women and Chocolate networking event at Atlanta Bread Company, Sonya is all smiles at a record attendance. Photo by Paul Chin, Jr.
According to Sonya Schweitzer, the biggest problem facing female business owners in Hampton Roads is “the old-school boy’s club mindset,” and she’s seen and heard that from many professional women. She’s come to the conclusion that it’s not what you know, but who you know in this area.
How does she plan on breaking through that mentality? Starting a new-school girls’ club, just for geekettes — women who have a desire to learn, and become experts in their field. Regardless what aspect of business, all women are invited to the club.
The idea wasn’t on whim, based from a bad day at work or school. Rather, The Geekettes Club was born from years of attending networking events where Schweitzer noticed women seeming to always take back seats to men in interactions and discussions. Also, in corporate America, where she worked at AOL, she found that women were often talked over, or meekly stepping back when open-ended discussions took place.
“I’d be at a networking event, and women would always find a way to get together and share ideas, rather than mixing in with the men,” Schweitzer says. “So, I saw an opportunity and thought ‘Why don’t we make an organization where women can come together and the focus is on helping each other?’”
No competition. No backstabbing. No crawling over each other to reach the top, but helping each other get there.
So on March 24, The Geekettes Club officially began in Hampton Roads with a launch party at Aloft Hotel in Chesapeake.
Each month, the club holds networking events which attract anywhere from 30-60 women. At each networking event, a few women share five minutes about their business, and some of their joys and struggles.
“A couple of weeks ago at a meeting, two financial advisors stood up and said a few words. Everyone was so into it, and asking questions, that it went on for 30 minutes. These were questions that could have otherwise gone unasked,” Schweitzer says. “These women got different appointments out of that one meeting. So, out of that one opportunity to speak, all of the women who attended got a lot of out it.”
With women, Schweitzer says, there is more emotion involved. This differs from a man’s business-driven mindset, who “does what it takes to get the job done.” To Schweitzer, women are more aware of feelings involved, so when women offer constructive criticism, it truly is constructive because women understand women a little better.
“How does a guy understand? You have a bad day, you have PMS, kids are screaming driving you crazy in the mornings, etc. Men don’t deal with that. Women have a better understanding and are more likely to open up with each other about things and discuss woman to woman, rather than in a co-ed atmosphere,” Schweitzer says.
What the club is not after, however, is compassion. The last thing Schweitzer wants for the club is a pity party. She even allows for a few exceptions to the all-girls rule.
“We need the guys. We totally need them, but there is a way we can help educate them on how to work with women versus seeing them as just women,” Schweitzer says. “I’ve lived all over the country and in different parts of the world, and it’s in the more conservative areas that I hear the term ‘secretary,’ and to me, secretary is such an old-fashioned term, and it’s more associated with women.”
So Schweizer is charging women to get men to change their mentality, understanding that there are plenty of women who are equally brilliant as them who can do an equally great job, and women’s emotions can be involved in a way to bring more collaboration and productivity to the workplace.
“I’ve read that a lot of times, women managers actually do better because they have these certain attributes men do not, and it’s almost like men could incorporate certain aspects of emotions and feelings into what they do.”
Schweitzer admits she’s generalizing. Not every woman is highly emotional, and not every man is insensitive to women’s feelings. “But in creating any association or group, you want in general for people to know what the focus is, and generally speaking, everyone knows that when women are involved in groups, there is some kind of bitchiness involved,” Schweizer says. “Little cliques are formed — it’s just the way we are.”
Embracing these traits and creating opportunities to use these for the greater good in business is what The Geekettes Club was created to do.
Currently, the club offers one-on-one peer counseling, which many small business members take advantage of already. Here, Schweitzer or another mentor will sit down with each member and help plan out strategies to help her grow her business methodically and in different directions.
This fall, the club is also offering training classes with topics focusing on how to start a business, how to do your taxes, marketing strategies, and employee recruiting, to name a few.
Along with monthly networking events, the club also offers a book club for its members, where women can meet once a month to read through business and personal development books to help grow their business.
—Story by Jessica O. Swink
