Talk February 2005

Features
TALK TALK TALK
Elena Francisc, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan

February 2005

Vivid: That cup your drinking out of, what is it?
Elena Francisc: It’s a cup I’ve had for more than ten years.

It says 'University of ...'
It says 'University of Waterloo'.

Which Waterloo?
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. That’s where I studied psychology. I have a major in psychology and a minor in Italian.

I lent a copy of Fahrenheit 9/11 to someone recently, and she lost it, and then a few weeks later she called me up and said she’d got me another copy. It wasn’t until I put it in the player I realised it was in Italian ...
(Laughs) Well, I can help you with that! I’m fluent in Italian.

Do you use it a lot? Do you go to Italy?
I’ve lived in Italy. I know Rome better than Bucharest. I’m ashamed to admit that, but it’s true.

You must know Canada pretty well too.
I don’t really know Canada that well. I only lived in Toronto and Waterloo in Ontario. I visited Quebec and Montreal.

So yes, this is the cup that’s been with me through hours of studying for exams, lots of late nights, lots of falling asleep over my papers, and, since I've been back to Romania, lots of meetings. She has been with me always.

''She''? I didn’t know cups had genders.
I like to give genders to everything. I always imagine that objects are either a girl or a boy.

So that grapefruit on your desk: is that a boy or a girl?
I decided this morning that this is a boy, and I also had an orange that was a girl, but I’ve already eaten it. I’m saving the boy for later.

It’s one thing to travel, and another thing to live in a country.
For me going to Canada was a major change. I went straight from school, when I barely knew any English. It was quite an experience. It gave a perspective on life. It taught me what responsibility was about. For instance, I had to pay my way through university, so when I was a student, I had several jobs, and I also managed to find time for voluntary community work.

And you’ve been back in Romania for seven years. How do you feel about that?
I feel great about it, although, when I first came back, I didn’t think I was going to stay. But I love to build, and there is a feeling of being a pioneer here. I really believe that Romania can and will change, and I think if a lot of people like me who can really do something to change things would leave, who would be here to help encourage transformation? So I feel good about being back here. I’m here to stay – for a good while at least. I’m pretty convinced that, through what I’ve done in the last seven years, I have helped a lot of women, and I want to continue to do that. It is an amazing feeling.

One thing I’m really interested in is what it is like to be the editor of a real magazine.
(Laughs) Your magazine is real, too!

Your magazine is more real than my magazine.
What do you mean ''more real''?! I must admit I am proud of the fact that I am editor in chief of such an influential and important magazine. What I love the most is the way Cosmopolitan contributes to changing and improving women’s lives. Out of all our readers, even if only one reader gets something out of an issue, then, for me, that’s more than enough.

It means it’s successful. I understand you go around the country talking to and meeting people.
I love to meet my readers. I wish I could do that more often. I’ve even surprised some by ringing their doorbells, and you should see their faces.

You speak to students at schools and universities too.
I love talking to young people, high school students especially. It saddens me to see how they are ignored by their teachers, their parents, society. And they feel lost. Usually schools will schedule a two-hour session, and I’ll go and speak to 50 students or so at a time. Generally they are close to finishing high school, and are about to go to university, ready to start a new stage in their lives. That’s when they feel the most lost, in need of direction. And I try to help them with that.

What do you talk to them about?
Anything, and everything. About communication, about friendship. They are mostly interested in relationships, sex, and above all, worried about the future, not knowing how or where they’re going to fit in.

You don’t think that they get that kind of guidance from their parents, or from their teachers?
No, not at all. Not at all. It’s sad. For the vast majority, their parents don’t really talk to them. I’ve been to many high schools and only once did I meet a guy who was 17 and said he had a great relationship with his father, a gynaecologist, and who had taught him a lot. You don’t find many youngsters who say they have a great relationship with their parents, who are always too busy to really be concerned. And unfortunately at school it’s the same. They’re not supported or guided by their teachers nearly enough.

Cosmopolitan then plays an important role in its readers’ lives.
Well, I don’t like the idea that we direct or advise. I think our role is to guide, rather. I like to think that Cosmo supports Romanian women. Forty per cent of our readers are men, surprisingly, so we are there to guide readers to try to trust themselves more, to respect and love themselves more. That is what I had in mind when I started the magazine. I really wanted to help the Romanian woman to respect and love herself more.

There is quite a bit about social issues in the Romanian version of Cosmopolitan. Is that common amongst other versions?
No, it’s not really common in other international editions. Although we respect the Cosmo formula, from the very first issue we decided to be associated with the fight against domestic violence. Until two years ago, there was no law on domestic violence here. We met many women who had been beaten by their husbands for years, and the police and the law were saying, 'Well, he’s your husband, he has the right to do whatever he wants to you'. Which is outrageous. So we said there had to be a law first, and we needed to show women that there is a system. Even now, there is a law, but we still need to work with social workers and the police to educate all these people to establish a system. Five years ago we went to the Chamber of Deputies with a petition that contained thousands of signatures stating we wanted to implement this law. That’s how we started.

Do you remember that time here when Playboy published an article titled, 'How to beat up your wife without leaving any bruises'?
Of course I remember that. You have no idea how furious I was. Together with my team and a lot of women, we protested in Piata Revolutiei.

I thought to ignore the article would be to silently condone it. So we attacked it in Vivid, saying how ridiculous it was. And then I get a telephone call from the advertising director of what was our largest advertiser at the time, a woman probably in her early 30s. She was screaming down the phone at me, saying, 'Why do you have to draw attention to this, you should have ignored it and people would have just forgotten about it. This is Romania. Don’t you understand?' Needless to say, the ad contract was withdrawn and it made me think twice about going out on a limb over something you believe in.
So she was saying you should have just kept quiet? And she calls herself a woman ...

It made me wonder what goes on behind closed doors. But now there is a law, and you were an agent of change for that.
Yes, but it’s not enough to have a law. Like I said: I believe we have to put a lot of time, money and patience into educating people to intervene. The neighbours, for instance.

Do neighbours intervene, in cases of domestic violence? If they hear screams?
Well, sometimes. Usually though they ignore it, but how could you ignore it, when you hear screams coming from next door and you think a woman is being killed in there? When a man is killing his wife, do you just turn over and go back to sleep?

Romania does not have a good record with domestic violence. Do women report violence, when it comes from their husbands?
Women used to not have the courage to report it. They used to worry about the future without their husbands, what would happen to their children, the family’s income would be lost, and so on. But now there are associations that try to teach and educate battered women that it is possible to reenter working life, to find a job, to be autonomous. There are a lot of helpful programs that do this.

So domestic violence has been one of the main causes that Cosmo has taken up. We have articles on it throughout the year, and, each year, our November issue is dedicated to it. In the October issue, we fight against breast cancer; in last year’s May issue, we started a new campaign to raise awareness about heart disease.

We need advertising money to survive, but are there advertisers that you would not allow in the magazine? What happens if a company wants to advertise, that isn’t up to your personal ethical standards?
Sometimes I get called by my boss in New York who queries why a product is being advertised in the magazine. Usually it is a product that is banned from advertising elsewhere, and she is not aware that there is no law banning the advertising of that product in Romania. If I had my way I would not allow certain products to be advertised, but I’m only the editor in chief, not the publisher or general director.

You do have a responsibility to your readers.
Yes, as editor of a well read magazine, I am really aware of my responsibility, more and more. For some people, Cosmo’s their 'bible'. So, it is really a huge responsibility. We have to be careful about what we write. Advertising is fine and we need it to survive, but the content is what we are really all about.

Would you ever put a normal looking woman on the cover?
Well, what do you mean by ''normal''? In the last two years we’ve had two covers with ''normal'' girls, the winners of our ''We want to be on the cover'' contest. Generally, we like beautiful things, beautiful pictures, beautiful people. We’re attracted to beauty. We’re less attracted to ordinariness. But as long as women understand that they don’t have to look like a cover girl, that they can love and appreciate themselves the way they are, that is important.

I guess it is just the power of advertising. Sometimes I feel that the world is being taken over by ten different companies.
I have that feeling too. They are very strong forces, that’s for sure. That’s why I like books. You can have a very intimate relationship with a book and you are not distracted by advertising in it.

You are a publisher in your own right as well.
The publishing house is my baby. It’s been my dream for a long time, and now it is finally happening.

What kind of books are you publishing?
The best kind! Well, I told you at the beginning of our talk, talk talk, I am a psychologist and, even though I’ve been an editor in chief for the last six years, my passion for psychology is still very strong. I never really gave it up, even though I haven’t practiced.

The publishing house, which is called Elena Francisc Publishing, will focus on the more spiritual approaches to psychology. In America, over the last 30 years or so, a new movement in psychology has emerged, called the transpersonal movement. Transpersonal therapies go beyond the conventional framework of psychotherapies, since they seek to incorporate the spiritual into the therapeutic process. With my publishing house, I will be editing books that centre on the transpersonal and the therapies that help us contact and integrate our spiritual selves. There will also be books on philosophy and psychology in general that relate to the transpersonal and humanistic movements, and as well as books on self-realisation, developing self-awareness and communication skills.

Books that would not otherwise be available in Romanian.
No, not until now.

So you’re taking texts that are already published in other languages, translating them into Romanian and publishing them?
For the moment, yes. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t publish a Romanian author. If I liked a Romanian manuscript enough I would publish it.

Are there manuscripts out there, by Romanian writers, in this field? Because this is quite a narrow field.
I’m not sure. Transpersonal psychology is a very new field, after all. It was really only born 30 years ago. Stanislav Grof is one of the founders.

I’ve noticed that you can’t mention his name without smiling ...
(Laughs) I don’t know if you’ve ever admired somebody so much that you feel ... well, when I met him, he touched me very deeply, just by his presence ...

So what does 2005 hold in store for Elena Francisc?
Well I’m juggling so many things at the moment, and wondering where I’m going to find the energy to do what I want to do. I have the magazine and its readers and my team at Cosmo who I really love. I have the publishing house and I’m hoping that 2005 will bring me the power, energy and money to bring more books on the market. I have also set up an association for transpersonal therapy which organises workshops and on top of all that, and I mean it’s at the top of everything, is my personal life and relationship that I would like to dedicate more time to.

I thought it was amazing when you told me how many paid ads you had for Cosmo. It really puts things in perspective. The magazine really is the market leader in its field, isn’t it? How many countries publish Cosmopolitan?
This year, there will be 58. And it’s quite an impressive meeting, when all the editors-in chief meet in New York.

You do that?
We do that, every two years. It’s called Cosmic. There’s been Cosmic 2000, Cosmic 2002, and so on. My first Cosmic was in the Bahamas, in Paradise Island, with scuba diving, dolphins. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Since 9/11 though we’ve been meeting in New York.

And are the other editors similar to you?
(Laughs) We are the same and all different! Actually each international edition is different, and you can see that. There are editors who are crazy about fashion, and you can see that in that particular edition, fashion has more of a role. They are all amazing women who try to keep in balance their professional and personal lives.

Would you say the Romanian version has more of a social cause focus?
Yes. There are no other editions of Cosmo that really have become as involved in various social causes as we have.

What is the boss’s reaction to that?
They know me for this. At first they were like, ''Are you sure you want to do this?'' And now that they know that I really believe in important issues such as trying to raise awareness of domestic violence and breast cancer, they have grown to trust me. I have an amazing relationship with my boss, Kim St Clair-Bodden, who is the president of the international editions of Cosmopolitan. Sometimes we argue for hours on the phone. And then at the end of the conversation she says, ''Well, Elena, I’m here in New York, I’m shouting at you from thousands of miles away, but at the end of the day this is your magazine and you know your country and your readers better than me.''

Excuse my ignorance but in other countries is Cosmopolitan published by Sanoma-Hearst?
No, Sanoma has a joint-venture with Hearst in Finland, Holland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and in every country Hearst has a different licensing agreement with different publishers.

And what are some other Hearst publications?
They have Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Good Housekeeping. They have Cosmo Girl ...

Cosmo Girl?
Yes, it’s for younger women. It would go well in Romania, I believe. We’re thinking about doing it here. I don’t really know how or when, or even if – but I’m looking forward to the time when Cosmopolitan will have a younger sister.

More on Elena Francisc Publishing can be obtained from www.efpublishing.ro.