Forging Their Own Path: Conflict Drives Women in Business Board to Resign from Chamber of Commerce

This afternoon's Women in Business Connection networking luncheon has been sold out for weeks. The restaurant, Gargoyle's in Somerville, is filled beyond seating capacity. The luncheon even had a waiting list.

And Martha Myers, co-chair of the Women in Business Connection, is thrilled.

But the road to such success has not been an easy one. Just two months ago, Myers belonged to the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, where she says she was treated with "a complete lack of respect."

Myers used to belong to the Chamber's Women in Business Steering Committee, a program that hosts monthly luncheons for women to network and address issues they face in the workplace.

In late December, however, the entire committee, Myers included, resigned from the Chamber to form an independent program, claiming that they had not been treated equitably.

Chamber President Gerald Oldach says it was not unfair treatment, but rather a difference in ideologies that led the women to resign.

"Most of these women were involved in very small, individually owned businesses," Oldach says. "They are a group of women who have a single agenda, and that is to communicate with other women in small businesses."

Oldach says other women who participated in the luncheons had different interests, like talking about how to survive in the corporate world. The Women in Business Steering Committee, he says, had no patience for such requests--a claim with which Myers wholeheartedly disagrees.

"We have no problem with big business," she says. "The Chamber has traditionally had trouble attracting large companies, and they are trying to blame that on us."

But the committee members' say their complaints with the Chamber were not just about power. Myers says gender issues were at the root of the problem.

"Our lunches were referred to as ladies' teas," she recalls.

"We were told to go and take our lunch money elsewhere," Levine remembers.

Oldach denies that the resignation had anything to do with gender and says he never addressed the women in such a condescending fashion.

"It was simply a question of power," he says. "The women wanted to run the committee on their own terms."

The proof, Oldach says, is that the women chose to form their own committee instead of joining another Chamber upon their resignation.

But the women say they simply could not stand any more disappointment and frustration.

"We were too badly burned by the Cambridge Chamber," Myers says. "We don't need people telling us we can't do things that we know we can do."

Their means and goals of the women's new organization are more suited to its overall objectives, say members.

For instance, as part of their

Chamber leadership roles, the women pursued sponsorships and raised money for the Chamber's general fund, without receiving much in return, they say.

So after what the women describe as a year of frustrating gender and power battles, they decided they were "simply wasting energy fighting with the Chamber," Myers says.

Levine says she eventually realized that "We could no longer serve the community by working within the Chamber."

Temporarily defeated, the women even considered "just walking away," Myers says, until they recognized that they simply could not abandon the idea of luncheons to support women in business.

"We couldn't let everyone down, and we also didn't want our own efforts to go to waste," Myers says.

So the entire Women in Business Steering Committee resigned to start a comparable program, bringing with it about 15 other women from the Chamber.

And the Women in Business Connection is thriving. For instance, the women had 110 people attend their first meeting, when they had expected 50 at most.

Since the women are not affiliated with any particular town's chamber, they are even attracting membership from outside Cambridge.

"The response has been phenomenal," Zwanger says. "We struck a chord for what people are looking for."

Oldach, meanwhile, says that although the Chamber has a new Steering Committee whose monthly luncheons have also continued, he wishes that the women had been able to stay. He says he believes the women's success will be limited because they are not part of a Chamber.

"The Chamber is the most successful model of business organization," he says. "These women are losing economic power."

He still hopes for reconciliation.

"We hope that one day we will be able to come back together again," he says. "There are no hard feelings, they just had to try to go off and do things on their own for awhile."

But Myers has no such plans.

"Now that we're not working within the constraints of the Chamber, we can do so much more," she says.

"We have changed a lot of people's lives," Myers continues. "I can't wait to see what we're going to do next."