Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient, joins Cheddar News to discuss how The Female Quotient is supporting women in the metaverse and beyond.  

Between Bells

The Female Quotient Aims to Support Women in the Metaverse 

Welcome back to Between Bells One L. A. Based equality service company is jumping into the metaverse. The female quotient just purchased land in the central and sandbox and N. F. T. World and are jumping headfirst into the metaverse to ensure that women are leading the way in Web three joining us now to discuss all of it is Shelley Zalis Ceo of the female quotient. Shelly, welcome to the show. I was just telling you during commercial, we love talking about the metaverse here at cheddar. We're so excited about this. What made you jump into this space? Well I mean I think we have to jump, women have to jump first because if we don't jump first it's gonna become the voice club in the metaverse and that is definitely not gonna happen. We've seen that way too many times. So we're getting in first here so walk us through how the FQ plans on bringing equality programming to metaverse, How would that work? Well you know we decided we're just going to twin what we're doing in the real you know in real life. So if we have equality lounges in every major conference in the real world why not do twinning And move us into the metaverse into Web three as well. And that's what we're doing, Moving the equality lounge into the metaverse as interest grows. How are women shaping the future of the metaverse, Shelley by showing up. So if we show up in the metaverse early then we can write the rules and you know the more of us that come in early and we migrate there then you know, we can start setting the tone and the rules and we can prevent it becoming the boys club like the video game business, you know this as well as I do a lot of viewers. Women included, men, women are a little, they don't understand the metaverse. How would you quickly explain the metaverse to viewers who are just kind of wrapping their heads around it? I think when you just think about the metaverse, it eliminates the middleman, basically it's decentralized and it just creates a community of um of a universe connecting with one another. And I think that's the beauty of it all. And I think when you look at web three and hopefully Web three is just going to give an opportunity for everyone and that's where equality really comes into play. As long as you have wifi and a computer, you belong in your opinion. How can the industry and even us as a society make this space more inclusive for everyone who wants to get involved by showing up experimenting, being curious and you know, really uh making it a place that everyone feels comfortable and safe and secure and I think that the more that we bring women front and center with education early on and we create the landscape and the Foundation, then we are setting the tone and writing the rules and I think that's what we're trying to ensure is writing the rules of the road. Speaking of that, the FQ is largely recognized for its equality lounges. How did these events foster conversations especially when it comes to supporting other women? Well, you know, I think that what we do in our equality launches is having very important conversations anything goes and when you have authentic open conversations about everything then there's no taboo topics and I think that's that's the most important thing and the same thing in the metaverse and we bring men into the conversation, you know, equality is not a gender issue. It's a conversation that we all have to participate in. I'm actually looking at the video and it looks so fun, it looks so cool. What advice do you have for women who want to break into the N. F. T. And the metaverse space and again, maybe a little intimidated, don't know where to start. Well we've got to get rid of that voice in our head 100% you know, so we gotta shut that voice up in our head and just go, you know, take the fear out of it and start being curious and jump all in because the men do that, right? And by the way they have that voice in their head, they just ignore it. Women let it get louder so we just have to shut that voice up in our head and and jump all in and not just the creative part. We need women in the business of you know the metaverse as well, the business of Web three and when we look at crypto, only 5% of women don't cover that a lot here. I mean and that's a big issue so we can't fall behind, we've got to come in in a big way and bring everyone with us, so education, you know, we're building a big education platform in the metaverse, very important to be educated and and not be afraid. So what's next for female quotient in terms of future growth? Well, I think education is number one, so really educating all of us. Everyone coming along, building the community which I think is really important. We have already a very large community of women that we have in our real life, so bringing that in and quadrupling paying it forward and um I think we're pretty excited of what's to come, We're pretty excited to have you, we hope you come back soon, Shelly's Alice Ceo of the female quotient