Telum Talks To... Emily Brooks, Editor, Future Women

Future Women (FW) is a brand new club dedicated to the advancement of women. I sat with Founding Editor, Emily Brooks, to talk about what the club is, why it's important, and how the team are building a non-traditional media business model.

How do you describe Future Women?

I think because Nine has backed it, a lot of people think it is solely a media site, but it is much more than that. The long-form journalism we produce on the site makes up only one-third of the business. Events make up another third - which we’re running in Melbourne, Sydney and soon across the entire country - and then there’s our community. Community is really at the heart of it. We’re a subscription based business so our members buy in to a network of women transcending their professional industry and life stage. After the events of #MeToo, then Clinton’s loss, and now Julie Bishop’s failed bid for the top job women are really looking for a safe space to discuss where we’re at and how we make meaningful change from here. Also, the simple things like finding a mentor and having the internet curated for you with a female-focussed lens in one destination. You’re really opting in to be part of something bigger.

This is a new media business model for people to get their heads around. How is it going so far?

The response has been really positive and what I find even more encouraging is that it's consistently growing each day. It's nice to walk into the office every morning and see new members having signed up.

Why do you think it’s important that there is a continued focus on gender equality?

Because women make up 50 per cent of the population, and all of the numbers show we're not there yet. The World Economic Forum, released a report last year saying there's another 217 years to go before we reach economic equality.

Future Women is here to speed that up. Just because a site or a club may have launched, doesn't mean the goal has been reached. It doesn't mean that the issues no longer need to be spoken about. There's been three waves of feminism before us and we’re far from there. We've come so far and there are so many feminists and incredible women who we must look back to and recognise and really appreciate their work, but there's still a lot more to be done. I'm excited to be a part of it. I would also say we may be in a women’s renaissance but feminism is humanism. We're really pushing for equality in a holistic sense.

What are the issues that you're excited to talk about and that you think need to get a bit more air time?

For me, there are two areas. Raising women's consciousness about equality and diversity is one. Women really need to be engaged on the issue because we have a vested interest in it. Education is crucial. I would also like to serve women's multifaceted interests. I think we've come out of a time where women were told what issues they should care about. Mostly by men, because most companies were run by men. Look at magazines. A lot of magazine publishers have traditionally been men, dictating the agendas of women's magazines. To be a woman working on content for women, I would like to pay credit to what women care about now. Which are a multitude of things. You can care about scoring seed funding and the right blazer in the same day. Neither is trivial.

What can readers or members expect, in terms of content?

We have a small team, and we’re growing, but at the moment we’re putting out one to two features a day. We have a weekly podcast [hosted by Jamila Rizvi] which tackles how to be (even) better at work, and we’re running a number of events each month which cover everything from mindfulness and making the most of your maternity leave to scoring VC funding for your big idea. Our events programme will massively expand over the next year. We’re also producing about three newsletters a week for our members. We have an FW Gold and a FW Platinum newsletter, plus a weekly newsletter for our subscribers who may not be paying members yet. Tomorrow we’re launching a fortnightly newsletter which covers diversity news across the globe.

Who is the audience you have in mind when you are producing content or events?

In terms of our members, they can be anyone from c-suites and the busy professional, to working mothers, to non-working mothers, to women who are just starting out at university. It's extremely broad, which does make it tricky to cover all bases sometimes, but I guess the fabric connecting all these women is ambition. What we're finding on the site is that anything regarding the betterment of individual women is doing really well alongside all our gender equality-geared content. Women work off recommendations so I’m keeping that at the forefront of my mind as I edit.

How do you explain the difference between 9Honey and Future Women?

?9Honey is a mass-women’s lifestyle site while we’re a club targeting a premium audience, as we’re a subscription-based company. I would say our audience is more heavily focused on professional women, and I think that speaks to the nature of the content on site.

Coffee, lunch or drinks?

Coffee, but probably decaf as it probably won’t be my first for the day.

Most memorable story you’ve been involved with?

The first big story that I had published at The Australian Women’s Weekly was a piece exposing the amount of money fashion bloggers were paid. These were the days where people thought a "blogger" was something to clean their drain with. I got hold of an advertising rate card for these bloggers and it pissed a lot of people off. That was my introduction to media.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Teleportation would be pretty cool?