Lori Meakin
The Others & Me
Lori is an award-winning strategist and entrepreneur who has worked with world-leading tech and entertainment brands including Amazon and Google, TripAdvisor and Vue.
After taking time out to research and write her book 'No More Menemies' (an Amazon UK #3 Bestseller in Women Writers & Women’s Writing), Lori now uses the behaviour-change expertise she's developed over decades in advertising, branding and the media to address the issue:
How can we get past the growing gender divisions and ‘menemies’ mindset, to build a world that works better for all of us - men and women, gay and straight, cis, trans and non-binary?
Her strategic innovation consultancy The Others & Me now addresses that question via everything from product & service innovation, to a fresh take on inclusion training.
Lori Meakin is speaking at the following session/s
How to Get More Girls: Gender and Gaming, Beyond the ‘Menemies’ Mindset
We all talk about needing to get more women into gaming: both in the workforce, and in the gaming experience itself. After all, despite positive progress, gaming still has a worse gender balance than any other creative industry. And we’ve got a long way to go to make the gaming and e-sports community a place where women and girls can feel like they belong - especially as often, right now, women and girls don’t even feel safe.
But most conversations about gender inclusion tend to end up doing more harm than good. The ideology gap between young men and women is big, and it’s widening: While Gen Z women are demanding more and more change, 53% of Gen Z men in Britain feel that gender equality has gone so far that it’s men who are now being discriminated against. Meanwhile, women often disagree about some fundamental stuff too – like is calling ourselves “girls” a positive or a negative thing? And there are those who claim we should just forget about gender anyway, as the future’s all non-binary.
Who’s right? What’s the answer? Is it even possible to get more girls into gaming (as creatives, consumers and characters) without making men and boys feel even more overlooked than they do already? Isn't this just going to exacerbate the current gender wars? And how is any of this gender debate going to drive business growth?
This session will uncover how we can get beyond a ‘Menemies’ mindset in gaming, and make the world of gaming one that works for all of us, and for the business.
Session Takeaway
- Ideas for developing characters, stories and worlds that the overlooked half of the population will really value too.
- Tips on how to grow your audience by marketing products beyond the traditional gendered assumptions.
- An appreciation that using better gender intelligence with our consumers and community also drives a positive culture-change within the company. (It's not just vice-versa.)
Session speakers
