Anyone know about The Wing women’s club?

[Missproportionate]

I’ve just come across as ad for The Wing in Facebook. It’s a club for women opening in a townhouse in central London this summer. It seems to be part of a US institution for women that I know nothing of...

www.the-wing.com/who-we-are/
Is sounds great....

“The Wing is a network of work and community spaces designed for women. We create spaces where our members feel safe and empowered to create, connect and generate opportunities.
OUR MISSION
The Wing’s mission is the professional, civic, social, and economic advancement of women through community”

However:
It doesn’t actually say it’s for women only -
I went through the application process and it says ‘The Wing is a diverse community
open to all‘ - and did not ask my gender or sex. It did greener ask me to describe how I had forwarded the cause of women and women’s rights.

I’m very interested in the idea, it looks great - but I’m a tiny bit worried....

It doesn’t even say if men are allowed in to visit (for context my DP is a member of a proper old school gentleman’s club - women are allowed in but not as ‘members’ - and it’s incredibly civilised and welcoming - more so than many other members clubs - but that’s another thread)

It says at the bottom of the page above the copyright that it is a diverse community open to all. So I think not a single sex space.

I thought there was a court case (in the US?) because some mra type tried to join and they were legally able to exclude him on the basis he didn't work for women's rights where they couldn't have done purely based on sex.

I appreciate it has existed since 1911 but the website is fairly teeth achingly twee in places. It feels overblown and phony. It's basically just selling you temporary office space. The clubs don't have overnight accommodation.

The merchandise page is grim btw- with "girls doing what the fuck they want" key fobs. "Girls" ???

There is a magazine called "No Man's Land . Current edition features this Marjon Carlosinterviews sociologist Robin DiAngelo about how white women are complicit in upholding the patriarchy^

I so wanted it to be a ‘good thing’
goes off to join the WI instead

The WI has been mixed sex for decades.

Fuck it
goes off to ‘identify as a man’ and join a gentleman’s club. So tempted.

Soroptimists?

We need to start our own clubs for Women only. You know, real women with real vulvas and xx chromosomes and we can tell men who want to join, despite our 'women only' policy, to f*ck off on the grounds that it's our club and we say so.

Sorry, just read a thread about men yelling at women from cars and it's triggered a tiny bit of 'not very niceness' in me.

We need to start our own clubs for Women only. You know, real women with real vulvas and xx chromosomes and we can tell men who want to join, despite our 'women only' policy, to fck off on the grounds that it's our club and we say so.*

current thread :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3585134-When-we-had-women-only-spaces-A-nostalgia-thread

www.thecut.com/2019/01/the-wing-membership-policy-more-inclusive.html

===

Co-Working Space The Wing Is No Longer Just for Women

The Wing, a co-working and networking space originally designed for women, has amended its membership policy to be inclusive of the gender nonconforming and trans communities, the organization announced on Friday. Previously, the club’s women-only policy applied to members and guests.

“With a growing number of members who identify as transgender or beyond the gender binary, we want to make sure that we are as inclusive a community as possible,” Zara Rahim, a spokesperson for the Wing, told the Cut in a statement. “To that end, we’ve made internal updates and adopted written membership policies to ensure that The Wing’s staff is trained not to make assumptions about someone’s identity based on how they present, or to ask prospective members or guests to self-identify.”

===

I expect you could at a stretch do all of those things and stay female-only, but ...

The article does also mention a lawsuit against them from a man refused membership, which The Wing claim is not the reason at all (why not?)

Whoah.

Ultimately ‘inclusive’ means ‘everybody’. I have never been so challenged by the blurred lines on all of this. I thought I was for inclusive. I still am for equal opportunities . The whole thing is making me second guess my assumption about -everything

There is an article about this in Vogue. They also welcome trans and, if memory serves me correctly, non binary people.

www.vogue.co.uk/article/the-wing-comes-to-london

It's true, the Vogue article does say “Trans women and those who identify as non-binary are welcomed, too”. That still doesn't really clear it up, though: do you think that includes men who identify as non-binary, or just women? (Everyday Feminism, for example, has a Riley Dennis piece and video on how non-binary doesn't exclude also identifying as a man or woman.)

There's an article in today's Guardian about Wings and other co-working spaces.

Quote: The Wing, which now has more than 8,000 members, welcomes trans women and those who identify as non-binary.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/17/rise-of-women-only-clubs-co-working-spaces-wing-blooming-founders