U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about strengthening the economy for the middle class and measures to combat gun violence during a visit to Hyde Park Academy in Chicago, Illinois February 15, 2013.

CHICAGO | Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:59pm EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama acknowledged on Friday that he wished his father had been a bigger part of his life as he argued that stronger families are just as important as gun control in reducing crime and violence in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Obama returned to his old home neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago with a different take on his gun control message - that it will require an improved home environment for children to reduce the possibility that they will one day resort to violence.

To do that, he said, will require better economic conditions for low- and middle-class Americans, one reason he wants to raise the hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $9, a proposal he offered in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, was raised largely by his mother and grandparents in Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama Sr., divorced Obama's mother when the president was two years old, and he was the central figure in Obama's memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

Pointing to a group of teenage boys with whom he had met privately before delivering a speech, Obama said he had not been much different than them.

"Don't get me wrong," he said in the address to high school students at Hyde Park Academy. "As the son of a single mom, who gave everything she had to raise me with the help of my grandparents, I turned out okay."

"But at the same time, I wish I'd have had a father who was around and involved," he told the mainly black audience of about 700.

Obama worked as a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago but had a more privileged background than many of the children he addressed on Friday.

Chicago has suffered a surge in gang-related violence and is one of the most violent cities in America. Obama's visit comes a week after his wife, Michelle, attended the funeral in the city of 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton, who was shot dead a week after participating in the presidential inauguration.

At the start of his second term in office, Obama wants Congress to approve a series of tighter gun controls like requiring background checks for all firearms purchasers and banning assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

But as he made clear in Chicago it will take improvements in the home environment for children to keep them off the streets and that this will require help from parents, teachers and clergy.

"When a child opens fire on another child, there is a hole in that child's heart that government can't fill," Obama said.

In too many areas, "it can feel like the future only extends to the next street corner or the outskirts of town...There are entire neighborhoods where they don't see an example of somebody succeeding," he said.

Corey Stevens, 17, a high school senior, was one of the students who got to meet with Obama before his speech.

"I think that he needed to come back here and get the message to the people up close and personal and let them know that this needs to stop," said Stevens, who wants to go into law enforcement.

Hadiya Pendleton's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, who was in the audience, had a message for those who have been following his family's tragedy in the news -- get involved.

"You never expect this tragedy to knock on your door... But there are preventative measures," Pendleton told Reuters. "So let's try to prevent it instead of waiting for it to happen."

Father Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest known for his activism against gun violence, agreed with Obama that gun laws alone won't solve the problem.

"We have to look in our urban communities and realize that we have a lack of good schools, lack of employment, abundance of poverty, abundance of folks coming back out of penal institutions with records," Pfleger said. "Until we deal with all those issues, you create the perfect storm for violence."

(Writing by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Renita D. Young; Editing by Alistair Ball, Mary Wisniewski, David Brunnstrom and Carol Bishopric)

(This story was corrected to read, "...or the outskirts of town..." instead of "...of the outskirts of town...")

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Thu Aug 9, 2012 2:14pm EDT

n">(Reuters) - Erica McGillivray grew tired of being asked by comic book store employees if she was buying the latest issue of "Batwoman" or "Birds of Prey" for her boyfriend.

So McGillivray, a 28-year-old "Star Trek" and comics fan, joined a group that believed women like her needed a geeky celebration to call their own.

McGillivray is now president of GeekGirlCon, the female answer to the male-dominated Comic-Con pop culture conference. The organization will hold its second convention this weekend.

The first GeekGirlCon in October 2011 drew numbers so large that organizers had to turn people away. So for its second convention the group found a bigger venue, trading seven rooms of meeting space for a downtown Seattle conference center.

Some 7,000 attendees are expected over Saturday and Sunday from throughout the United States and from as far away as Australia -- some dressed as Princess Leia, Wonder Woman or other geek heroes and heroines.

Big companies are taking notice of women's interest in all things geek. Video game maker Electronic Arts signed up to sponsor GeekGirlCon and will bring some of its titles, including an NHL game with a female hockey player.

"Women have always been a part of geek culture," said McGillivray, who started watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation" at age 3 with her mother. "We've just been in such small numbers, or kind of pushed to the fringes, that we haven't really been seen before."

BRING ON GIRL GAMERS

GeekGirlCon has emerged as the ranks of females among video game players has risen to 47 percent, according to the Entertainment Software Association.

Much of the female gaming increase comes from casual and social games played on mobile phones and Facebook, said Jesse Divnich, an analyst at video game research firm EEDAR. Female buyers will help push the $50 billion worldwide market up 3 percent to 5 percent a year through 2015, Divnich estimates.

"The myth that video games are for teenage boys has been proven wrong," Divnich said. Manufacturers are taking steps to understand women's gaming habits and preferences, in some cases adding female protagonists.

"It's something all the major players in this industry are striving for," he said.

In the past two years, Geeknet's online retailer ThinkGeek, which generates $18 million in quarterly revenue, has seen an upswing in purchases of items such as geek-themed jewelry and women's-sized T-shirts, according to PR manager Steve Zimmerman.

Women buy more than men from the company's website, although it is unclear how many are purchasing for themselves or for gifts. Sales of "Doctor Who" merchandise are about evenly split between men and women, Zimmerman said.

COMICS TO CODING

Still, women and girls are often overlooked in geekdom, one reason behind the creation of GeekGirlCon. Run by a 40-person, all-volunteer staff, the organization and convention celebrates and supports female geeks of all types.

The movement came together after the 2010 Comic-Con, when a panel discussion called "Geek Girls Exist" attracted a standing-room-only crowd.

The packed room inspired a group of women to start their own conference for females who enjoy everything from The Hulk and "Dungeons & Dragons" to computer coding or rocket science.

The first GeekGirlCon drew 4,000 people over two days. This year, guests will move among discussions on topics from robotics to computer programming, and comic-book fashions to female characters in "Star Wars".

Jane Espenson, a writer and producer for sci-fi TV shows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Once Upon a Time," will speak about her new Web series, "Husbands." Comic book writer Gail Simone will appear with the "Batgirl of San Diego," a woman who spoke out at last year's Comic-Com - dressed as Batgirl - about the lack of female representation in comics. Female scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also will speak.

One panel, titled "Go Make Me a Sandwich," will tackle a hot topic: the hostility and harassment women face from some male geeks. Anita Sarkeesian, who campaigned to raise money for a project to explore female stereotypes in video games, will talk about hateful comments and threats leveled at her online, and how women rallied to her support.

On the lighter side, women at an evening entertainment program will sing along to a musical episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." A gaming floor will provide a chance to enter tournaments or try out new titles.

WANTED: EVEN MORE INCLUSION

Electronic Arts is bringing its NHL game, which last year added a female avatar option after a 14-year-old girl wrote a letter complaining that it was "unfair" and "not fun" to be represented by a male player on screen.

To help attract more women, EA acquired PopCap Games, maker of social and casual games such as "Bejeweled" and "Plants vs. Zombies" in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion.

Ginger Maseda works as EA's diversity and inclusion manager, a job created to help recruit women to the company and increase the female appeal of games. Maseda, a gamer most of her life, said sponsoring GeekGirlCon "makes sense for us, so we have a chance to really relate and understand what (females) want to see and what they want to play."

McGillivray said that although progress has been slow, she has seen more products geared toward women, an increase in female protagonists and women creators behind the scenes.

One goal of the conference, McGillivray said, is to raise awareness of how many passionate female geeks exist. She hopes that companies will start thinking: "Oops, we are missing half our market or more. How can we capitalize on that?"

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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