Why we need to support DIVERSITY in Web3!
Web3 is known as a space with people communicating through avatars, grafic pictures and pseudonyms — no need to reveal gender, skincolor, age or your home country. It could be that liberating but it’s still not. Why? Let’s deep dive in history and todays structure of society.
To reveal my point of view: I identify as a 35 year old white, german passing, queer, cis-woman. Born in Slovenia and raised in Austria. I chose to live in Hamburg Germany, no one identifys me as person with immigration background around here. Where my knowledge does come from: I’ve been working for inclusion and diversity in communication strategies and web2 for more than 10 years and as personal branding expert for women* and queer people.
Our world is build for (white) men
Following researches through the past years, we got aware our world was and still is build for men — especially privileged white men. Studies revealed huge gaps in data for health, daily usage goods, infrastructure, (to continue a long list here) and this are not nuts, in fact this costs lives every day because of wrong medicine, medical treatment, crashes or because streets are no safe spaces at all.
When we think of a group of people, a community or society, we mostly think about white privileged people — as a woman, mostly of white men. This is how internalised socialization works — we do make a difference in gender and skin, because there is one.
To create a more inclusive world we did a lot the past years. We showed up as communities on the streets or via social media. Women became important role models and celebreties and well-known people identified as queer. More men state themselves as allys and feminists. This taught us, being a woman is no handicap for becoming an engineer and being queer is normal — no mental treatment needed.
But why do we need visible diversity in web3?
Now you may ask, why we still need visibility for diversity in web3, especially this space should/could be neutral? It is, because we all still associate neutral or normal as white-male in common. This is why we saw NFT projects turning out as discriminating, as racist or sexist. Communities became rude with people indentifying as female*, B*POC or queer. Women* around me still believe that NFTs are a boys game — something funny, like gambling. NFTs as investments are to risky and there is no space for them to work professionally in Web3. They are afraid of joining communities because they have experienced IRL (in real life) what it means to be a woman —this came with beeing excluded, laugh at, harassed, bullied, …
But to make one thing sure, this is not just a feeling, it is marked down in numbers.
- Men invest twice as much as women: in cryptocurrency (16% of men vs 7% of women), exchange-traded funds (14% of men vs 7% of women), individual stocks (40% of men vs 24% of women), in mutual funds (30% of men vs 20% of women), real estate (36% of men vs 30% of women) and bonds (14% of men vs 11% of women). 08/2021 link
- Art of women sells for 50% less. Only 5–15% of NFT projects are by women*. 03/2022 link
We need #WomenLedProjects, queer and B*POC projects supporting the onboarding process of their community. We need this safe spaces to grow, to learn and to educate. We need to follow people opening this spaces for us, so we know, we are welcome and we are allowed to claim our space, to speak out and to create own projects.
“A lack of visibility of women*, B*POC or LGBTQIA* people leads to a reproduction of internalized discrimination. If you aren’t visible, you won’t be represented. If you aren’t represented you do not exist.” D.E.
What can you do?
Mostly men react with “but not all men” and this is true and this is not part of the discussion. It is not about you to stand out against “the other men/people/racists”.
- We all can be ALLYs for smaller groups.
- We all can raise our hand against discrimination.
- We all can step back, listen and let them speak.
- We all can support these projects.
- We can share these projects and statements of people to gain visibility for their needs.
We all need to accept that we hurt people, make them suffer and mostly by ignoring that this is a problem of us, as society. With not becoming active you will support the system and keep it running. Gaining awareness for what discrimination means for most people ist the first step to listen and help, to recognize needs, to empower and to evolve — to become an ally, because we do not have the same chances given by birth.
When you made it here and read through the whole article, I personally want to thank you for your invest of time. I’d love to invite you to get in touch with me or to share your thoughts. You’ll find me here @dajanaeder.eth and as co-founder of wom3n a DAO built to onboard women* and queer people, to empower them becoming active participants and founders in web3. We are a world wide network of supportive people, mentors, coaches and investors.
