The Wing (workspace)

Audrey Gelman

Audrey Gelman, co-founder and CEO of The Wing, began her career working on Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. On the campaign, Gelman managed communications and ensure quick response from her the team. Gelman also worked on the 2013 campaign of the New York City comptroller Scott Stringer. Most recently she worked in political and social affairs serving as Senior Vice President at the strategic communications firm SKDKnickerbocker.^[4] Gelman has been named one of Fast Company's "Most Creative People in Business", Forbes Magazine's "30 under 30", one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in New York" by The New York Daily News, and one of Buzzfeed's "21 Amazing Role Models for Twentysomethings."

Lauren Kassan

Before The Wing Lauren Kassan, co-founder and COO of the women's co-working space, was working with fitness startups. She worked with now big name fitness startups such as SLT—a New York boutique fitness studio—where she eventually became the director of business development. Kassan also worked for ClassPass where she focused on the development of the startup's studio network. Kassan is well experienced in operations and community management.^[5]

Human rights investigation

On March 1, 2018, the New York City Commission on Human Rights started a "commission-initiated" investigation^[9] into how The Wing membership system operates. According to the application rules of the Wing, men cannot become members of The Wing or visit as guests. Nevertheless, the club says it will accept members who are "living as a woman" and will review applicants' social media to determine their identity. This requirement, however, may exclude people who are gender nonconforming or who do not identify on the gender binary, which became one of the reasons for the investigation to emerge, since New York prohibits discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" and "gender expression."^[10]

Representatives from The Wing planned a meeting to discuss the issues with NYCC, disputing the accuracy of the term "investigation." Instead, the company described the inquiry as a collaborative process. "All that's happened is that The Wing and the Commission have agreed, mutually, to sit down and have a conversation," said Karen Dunn of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, who is representing the company in the matter. "We are looking forward to working with The Wing to ensure that they are in compliance with the law," said Seth Hoy, a spokesperson for the NYCC.^[11]

The investigation evoked various disputes in the academic and social environments. Melissa Murray, a professor of law at U.C. Berkeley who is currently teaching at New York University, criticized the commission's interest in The Wing: "I think it's patently absurd for New York's human rights commission to be focusing on The Wing when we've had, over the last six months, numerous complaints about workplaces being absolutely hostile to women in terms of pervasive and endemic sexual harassment." Craig Gurian, the executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center in New York, however, offered a defense of New York City's public accommodations law: "To the extent that there are workplaces or public accommodations that have inappropriate behavior, the solution is to fix those workplaces or public accommodations. Separate is not equal. We were supposed to learn that a very long time ago.^[12]

New York City Commission on Human Rights tweeted on March 27, 2018, responding to The Wing members' personal tweets defending their safe space: "In NYC, no one should be discriminated against or harassed because of their gender. @NYCCHR uses every resource at our disposal to hold violators accountable and get justice for victims. Last yr, we increased fines & damages collected by more than $1 mil, collecting $2.7 million."^[13]