After a month, Philly’s female-only coworking space The Hive is getting off the ground

There’s a new coworking space in town, but this one stands apart from the rest for one reason: it only accepts women.

Founder Melissa Alam says, so far, The Hive has attracted a diverse field of female workers.

“We’ve got yoga teachers, we’ve got publicists, graphic designers, women who are starting auto mechanic classes for other women,” said Alam.

About a dozen women have bought memberships to The Hive in the month and a half it’s been open, some of whom are looking for a coworking space with a twist.

“I come from a family of a lot of women,” said Mary Thibault, a public relations strategist who works remotely. “And I was looking for a space where females felt really empowered and were doing all this exciting type of work where you could inspire one another.”

Others gravitated to The Hive because it was something different.

“I have two older brothers and most of my family is male, which is part of why I love sports and it’s so ingrained in me,” said Caroline Davis, a prospective graduate student in sports management. “But finding that female outlet is not something that comes to me in my daily life.”

Walk in the front doors of the Old City space and you’re immediately met by the long, communal table where most of the women work. All of them say sitting next to each other, bouncing ideas off one another, and having some positive peer pressure to stay off Facebook — that’s all a product of being in close quarters with like-minded workers.

“It gets very, very lonely working out of your apartment or working out coffee shops next to strangers,” said Alam, “so having that support in a coworking space in general is just amazing.”

She characterizes The Hive as something like a women’s networking group with a 24-hour “headquarters.”

Alam says there’s no mold a women need fit into to join The Hive, but she continues to be on the look-out for “the creative female who has an amazing idea and wants to show it to the world or the Philadelphia region.”