Amidst the blooms in the back garden of the Loring-Greenough House, the entrepreneurs at Boston’s first women’s market sold their wares.
On Sunday, the Boston Women’s Market gathered local, women-led businesses, ranging from chocolatiers to jewelers to booksellers, to connect with potential customers and each other.
Molly Leger, the event’s organizer, said she hoped the market would inspire female coalition.
“In almost all professional fields, you’re going to walk into a space, and it’s going to be completely men,” Leger said. “I feel like what we should be seeing is women supporting women. But in all the workplaces I’ve been in, it’s been far more competitive.”
The market served as a physical foundation for the vendors and customers to create a community and empower each other.
“Everyone is being super supportive of each other,” said Rachel Leiner, a sophomore in the College of Communication at Boston University and market vendor. “It seems like a really great community of women entrepreneurs, and I’m really excited to be here.”
Leger cited Femme Fatale DC, a regular pop-up showcasing women-run, local businesses, as her inspiration for the market.
“Most female-dominated spaces are very competitive, and [Femme Fatale] was so collaborative and so kind,” Leger said. “And I was like, ‘Why doesn’t Boston have this?’”
Initially, Leger began by pursuing a few vendors individually. But when she created the event’s Facebook page, she was quickly flooded with requests.
“If you build it, they will come,” Leger said, “All of a sudden, I went from having just 15 vendors to 30 and having to turn people down. I probably got between 45 and 50 requests.”
Reflecting on the importance of gathering, both as women and small business owners, Leger said shared experience often forges strong bonds between female entrepreneurs.
“The experience of trying to start so small and build on this thing you love to sell is really hard,” Leger said. “And that knowledge [that] you’ve done this and it’s really hard, and I’ve done this and it’s really hard, I think pushes people together.”
Anne Wright, founder of Tipsy Chocolates, expressed excitement about getting the opportunity to connect with other local business women.
“I’ve dealt with all of the kinds of challenges that it takes to work with men who refer to you as ‘the girls’ or tell inappropriate jokes,” Wright said. “And I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to work with other women, and I like working with other small business owners.”
Juliette Laura, founder of Jaelle Designs, which sells shirts depicting breasts and objects that resemble them, said her work was especially well-received in the women-dominated space the market provided.
“Since this is the Boston Women’s Market and all of the vendors are female, I think that everyone here is really open to the idea of wearing boobs on a shirt,” Laura said. “Everyone has been really happy about it.
Anna Williams and Rashmi Madhavan, graduate students at BU’s School of Medicine, said the event’s atmosphere was perfect for discussing and promoting their study on menstruation and ovulation, which aims to identify risk factors for potential diseases, like polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder.
“It’s the right enthusiasm. It’s the right energy,” Madhaven said. “People are coming up and being like, ‘Oh my God, we need someone to care about this!’”
Ruth Allard, 23, of Newton, who patronized the market, said the event’s feminist bent pulled her in.
“My friend is visiting, and we’re both very into feminism,” Allard said. “We were looking for something fun to do today and we saw this event on Facebook, so we were like, ‘How can we not come here?’”
As for the future, Leger is optimistic. She has not yet confirmed when the next market will take place, but said she hopes to expand the event in the future.
“This is our first one ever,” Leger said, “But I would love to see this flourish to a place where it is a community of women who know each other. And I feel like that more that we do this, the stronger our Boston community becomes.”
