Last week, Meta Chief Business Officer Marne Levine declared the metaverse will be a ‘game changer for women.’
For that prediction about a new digital world to be realized, we have to get more women into the metaverse — and investing in Web3 — in the first place.
It’s a topic I discussed earlier this week at AdWeek on a panel titled "Women In The Metaverse" with Metagolden Founder Francine Ballard, Web3 Entrepreneur Shira Lazar, EY Partner Janet Balis and Qulture Founder Quynh Mai. Only 7% of U.S. online females even own an NFT, lagging behind their male counterparts. Despite this dreary statistic, my fellow panelists and I see female leaders building in the space every day.
We started our conversation defending the importance of learning about Web3, given the market conditions. While the price of ether and bitcoin may be down and NFT sales are hitting some of the lowest levels on record, all the panelists agreed that the technological promise of Web3 is not going away.
“You see a lot of headlines that are blending together the market cycles with innovation in Web3,” I said. “We have to separate what's going on with technology with what is happening in the financial downturn.”
Janet Balis then proposed a provocative idea: What if women’s brains were actually hardwired better to succeed in Web3? The hemispheres of women's brains are more interconnected, said Balis, making them better equipped to connect logic with creativity.
Those connections just may be the secret sauce that leads to innovation in Web3.
“Our brains are wired better… to connect creativity, technology and a business model and bring all of those concepts together with human intuition, IQ and EQ,” she said. “That's a really powerful opportunity to build [within Web3 structures].”
While this may be a concept that my fellow panelists and I pondered for the first time, it's one that resonated immediately. Francine Ballard, who launched the phygital fashion brand Metagolden after a career working in fashion publishing, said that she is living proof that Web3 can work for women. Metagolden did nearly $1 million in sales in its first year.
And the underlying principles of Web3 — collaboration, ownership and creativity — just made sense to Ballard from the beginning.
“From the very first minute that I learned about NFTs and started investing in crypto, I knew it was where I wanted to be and I knew that it was somewhere that I could do something different, that's never been done and something using that creativity,” she said.
The ability to see how blockchain technology will transform whole industries and companies is a skill that every female Web3 founder I have interviewed has shared. Just last week, Outdoor Voices Founder Ty Haney told me that even before she understood crypto, she saw how Web3 would change digital marketing and customer acquisition. And the week before that, Rebecca Minkoff shared how she instantly connected NFTs to the future of fashion.
These are just two examples of countless women who are building and innovating in Web3.
So how do we change the narrative — and the numbers — that women are not built for Web3, interested in the metaverse or investing in crypto? It starts with educating them about the opportunities, said Web3 Entrepreneur Shira Lazar.
“You're either intimidated by the information or you think it is inaccessible to you,” she said. “We need to create safe spaces for underrepresented people to feel seen, heard, and say, ‘Hey, come here. We don't wanna leave you behind in this next movement of financial and technological abundance.’ That happens through education and access.”
Check out a replay of the discussion here
This is not financial advice. If you don't want to spend money investing in crypto or Web3 — you don’t have to. The intent of this article is to help others educate themselves and learn.
Caroline Fairchild is Editor in Chief at BFF
