Femmi Has A Focus On High Performance

Founders Esther Keown and Lydia O’Donnell have been awarded Jaguar’s third and final ‘She Sets The Pace’ community grant.

High performance is behind the mission of Femmi, a women-led fitness start-up that not only has a bold vision for change, but addresses the systemic gendered problems plaguing competitive athletes. Its founders were chosen by Jaguar for its community grant, which sees the luxury car brand investing in changemakers and people addressing the status quo, providing funding for people challenging conventions — like Esther Keown and Lydia O’Donnell.

Femmi’s mission is to inspire, educate its community to feel empowered within their bodies through knowledge, movement and connection. “The issues we are trying to tackle are not small. In fact, they are issues that impact everyone and every industry in the world,” explains Esther and Lydia. “Our north star is to shift the needle on gender inequality and this ultimately drives our decisions and actions.”

To do so, they focus on key areas that have created obstacles in sports and exercise and disproportionately affected women. “There has been a stigma attached to periods for far too long,” Esther says. “They are extremely powerful, they are a sign of health for women, they are a tool to confirm we are training, fuelling and recovering well, managing stress and can stay involved with sport and exercise long term.”

Adding to that, they say, is the systemic ignorance and lack of education around women’s health. “From 2014-2020 less than six per cent of sports research studies were exclusively conducted on women,” Esther reveals. “The lack of acknowledgement that women are in fact physiologically and psychologically different from men has resulted in women often training in the way that is not right for them. Diets and training approaches that show a positive impact on male health are promoted as good for everyone, when in reality many of these protocols can have negative effects on women’s health, sustainability in sport and hormonal health in their reproductive years.”

The industry, like most, is also dominated by men, especially in positions of power and influence. “The third issue we’re tackling is creating space for women in the sporting, technology, start-up and medical industry that is historically skewed towards men.”

Young athletes, and any women undertaking exercise, sports or movement face myriad gender-related issues. “Much of what we speak about at Femmi has in the past been riddled with shame and kept silent for many years, but we are peeling back those layers,” says Esther. “We want to inspire others to push back on the system.” From pressure to lose weight, gruelling training and sexism, there is a little-discussed dark side to competitive high-performance sport that impacts young women.

All this contributes to the high dropout rate of young girls in sport. “By age 14, young girls are dropping out of sport at twice the rate of young boys. There is a multitude of factors causing the high dropout rate such as: lack of education, pressure on young girls to be perfect, lack of support systems, body image.”

That’s why Esther and Lydia started Femmi, to speak out about these issues and create meaningful change. Founded on their personal experiences as young women athletes, it launched in 2020 with one-to-one training, aligned to menstrual cycles, and a female-led approach.

Since then, growth has been swift. “We have 12 coaches now and have coached well over 200 women across eight countries. The results we have seen have been astounding with 85 per cent having seen improvement in performance, their confidence in themselves has doubled since joining Femmi and incredibly 100 per cent of our athletes feel more empowered in their bodies.”

Adding to this is an online education course, that sees Esther and Lydia work with medical experts — endocrinologist Dr Izzy Smith, dietician Sara Widdowon, physiotherapist Grace Coombes and provisional psychologist Lilli Burdon — to share knowledge with the Femmi community. “This addresses the issue of lack of education on female physiology and psychology, an issue that affects many women in not only the sporting arena but the medical system too,” explains Esther.

They have run scholarship courses and mentoring programmes for young athletes, and are currently operating run clubs in six cities across Aotearoa and Australia every Friday. “These meetups facilitate connection, inspiration and friendships. It’s been amazing to see the close-knit community that has grown from the FemFriday movement. We have plans to make this movement global, giving women the opportunity to connect with others in their own communities and create life-long friendships through Femmi.”

They’re also developing a Femmi app to challenge fitness industry standards for women — which have, more often than not, historically focused on weight loss. “This app will connect women globally, build their confidence, educate them about their bodies and allow them to train in the way that is right for them,” they explain. “The Femmi mission has become hyper-focused on producing a global digital platform that provides women a safe space to connect, train to their menstrual cycles, and become educated about their bodies.”

We know this will change the fitness industry for women in a positive way and cannot wait.

Creating change also means taking an inclusive approach. “Femmi has a training approach that is centred around female physiology and hormones, but the Femmi community is open to all women. We acknowledge that not all women have uteruses and not all people who have uteruses, or who menstruate, are women,” Lydia and Esther tell Viva.

“When you create a system skewed to a gender, it means women, and those that don’t fit within that gender ideal, are automatically on the back foot. We had no input in the way it is run. It is the same for any minority group, when you have no say in the way things are formed your perspective and your life experiences will not be considered or accounted for. We want to change this, we are creating what we know women want and need and we will do it our way.”

Applying for the grant was rewarding, giving a chance to consider what Femmi had achieved to date and what barriers they still had to overcome. “As a woman, it is easy to dismiss what we go through, but applying for this made me reflect on the challenges we have faced as female athletes and founders,” says Esther. “Going through the process has made us even more proud of the movement we have created in an industry that has historically worked against us.”

Esther and Lydia were chosen by Jaguar’s panel of judges — including Jaguar’s chief financial officer Natasha Mannering, Viva editor Amanda Linnell, and motorsport figure Tiffany Chittenden. “Learning about the issues that Femmi is addressing was enlightening, and we are proud to advocate the change that Femmi is driving — to educate, support and empower female athletes in their own performance, both mentally and physically,” explains Natasha, regarding the judges decision. “Esther and Lydia’s ethos aligns perfectly with what Jaguar set out to achieve through the grant, which is why we chose them as the final winners of the ‘She Sets The Pace’ grant.”

As winners of Jaguar’s ‘She Sets The Pace’ community grant, the Femmi co-founders receive $10,000 to help them continue challenging conventions in their chosen field, a profile in Viva, video interview, and the use of the Jaguar I-PACE — the brand’s award-winning all-electric SUV, and first of its kind for Jaguar — for three months.

The grant money will help them build, educate and connect. “We will be investing the money to continue to drive awareness of these key problems women face on a daily basis, and continue to support the next generation,” Esther says. “We are so grateful and excited to have been selected as the winners.”

They’ll put the grant towards the Femmi app, growing their community and expanding the FemFriday run clubs. “We want to expand this globally and create safe spaces for women to train, chat and connect with other women. We want to use these funds to continue and improve the scholarship programme to reach more young women and connect with grassroots clubs and athletes.

This is the third and final grant Jaguar is awarding as part of its ‘She Sets The Pace’ initiative, which sees it spotlight and invest in change-making women who are challenging the status quo. ‘She Sets The Pace’ formed a key part of Jaguar’s wider mission for 2022 and 2023, and the luxury brand has a history of supporting and collaborating with convention-breaking women in motoring, and this grant ensures that challenging conventions doesn’t end on the race track.

For Lydia, Esther and their team at Femmi, this grant invests in their drive for change. “The fact that more and more people want to join the movement validates the need and that the importance of what Femmi is doing is becoming more well-understood. The time to invest in women and women’s sport is now, the data backs this, don’t miss this opportunity,” they say, stressing that their door is open for anyone who wants to learn more. “This is most certainly a plug, if you are interested please reach out to either lydia@femmi.co or esther@femmi.co.”

They also hope that they’ll inspire others to look inwards and challenge their idea about the world and the people in it. “We want others to push for change in their own industries, we are in sport but it’s all connected, sport and exercise is a great avenue to express yourself and build confidence. What we have learnt from sport and the work we have done at Femmi crosses industry boundaries. Inequality for women and minority groups is not confined to one industry, it is global. We hope the work we do at Femmi can inspire women, men and gender-fluid people in all industries and systems to challenge the status quo, go after what they want and fight for a better future.”

A New Era for Jaguar

The luxury car brand is looking forward, not only with its inspiring community grant ‘She Sets The Pace’, but also with its evolving range and commitment to product innovation, new technology and pushing boundaries for high-performance motor vehicles. Most notably, and a model that is a pivotal part of the grant prize for its winners, is the I- PACE — Jaguar’s first all-electric SUV.

What makes the I- PACE so exceptional?

· Its 90kWh batter is long lasting, and can be charged at home as well as on the go.

· Thanks to instant torque and all-wheel-drive traction, this zippy model has the acceleration of a sports car (it can go from 0 to 100km/h in 4.8 seconds) and its two electric motors are similar to those in the I‑TYPE Formula E racing car.

· Inside is luxurious, with twin-needle stitching and your choice of sport or performance seats, and spacious too — with five seats and plenty of storage (including 27 litres worth in the front).

· A low centre of gravity and aerodynamic design make it a dream to drive, and clever suspension lowers the I-PACE by 10mm when going over 105km/h.

· There’s a panoramic glass roof, making this model a real vision.

· It’s tech savvy, with a cutting-edge infotainment system, navigations with real-time traffic updates, heads-up display, 3D surround sound, and integration with Apple and Android. Smart!

Learn more at Jaguar.co.nz