Horry County women lunch with power

CONWAY -- Some men in Horry County who heard that the Conway Chamber of Commerce sponsors a monthly Women's Power Luncheon might - to one another at least - smirk, maybe snort, and say, "Yeah, right."

If these stereotyping men had a conversation about it, they would surmise with certainty that the women were sharing secrets about how to outmaneuver the men at work, and that the luncheon ultimately dissolved at some point into a hormonal feast of complaints about the beasts of the other gender.

They'd be wrong.

The luncheons, said Conway attorney Karen Sauls, one of the organizers, are not about surviving in the workplace.

"It's about fellowship," she said. "Not a bit of this is about 'this is a man's place, here's how to survive.'"

Indeed, Friday's luncheon at J. Reuben Long Detention Center was about women in the criminal justice system, from the street to the jail. The four featured speakers ranged from an undercover officer to an assistant solicitor, all women. They described their jobs, talked about the day they knew they were in the right line of work and how they carried their innate femaleness into their workplaces.

"We all share the same thing," said Alicia Richardson, senior assistant solicitor for the 15th Judicial Circuit. "Number one, we're all women. And we're mothers."

The women at the luncheon said they can't shed their personal lives when they sit at their desks, as they perceive men are more practiced at doing. Ultimately, those personal roles may not influence their decisions, but they can influence the road to the decisions and the exploration of side roads that may have viable solutions that more single-minded people might never consider.

Judge Margie Livingston, an Horry County magistrate, talked about the alarming rise in domestic violence and the number of kids caught with illegal drugs and stolen prescription medicines during her 19 years on the bench. She said she wonders whether there aren't solutions other than putting offenders behind bars.

Horry County Sheriff's Capt. Susan Safford, a 20-year veteran, said murders in Horry County were so rare when she began her job that jail workers knew the details of each one. Now, she continued, the jail houses 40 people charged with murder and she knows none of the details.

What it says about the changes to society during her tenure are disturbing.

Leslie Quick, a Myrtle Beach CPA, said she's putting the monthly luncheon on her calendar after attending her first session Friday. She was intrigued by an announcement of it in the Conway Chamber's newsletter.

There was a comfort level in being there, she said, that might not have been as high if there had been men in the room.

"You can talk about being a mother," she said. "You can talk about being a wife."

The words from the speakers weren't that much different than they might have been in a gathering where men ran the meeting. But for women, the absence of men makes the messages from fellow women easier to absorb. Networking and bonding with someone who thinks more like you do is easier. Men bond on a golf course and talk about sports, not emotions, said Kelly Cauble, who initiated the luncheons. Women naturally weave emotions into their bonding rites.

"When you have a woman," said Bridgette Johnson, executive vice president of the Conway chamber, "you have someone who has the same emotions you have. You hear it. You feel it. You're walking in the same shoes. A man doesn't walk in the same shoes."