The Wing’s New Podcast “No Man’s Land” Is the Women’s History Lesson You Didn’t Know You Needed

Even if you’ve never stepped foot inside The Wing’s women-focused co-working space, you probably know what one looks like. Since launching in 2016, The Wing has rapidly expanded, taking over our cities and our Instagram feeds with its millennial pink walls and celebrity speakers. By many, it’s seen as the ultimate cool-girl hangout, a place where you can take a call inside the “Fran Fine” phone room, hatch your plans for world domination, and, soon, drop your child off for childcare. And now, those same vibes are coming directly into your ears with the launch of The Wing’s new podcast, No Man’s Land.

The history podcast, which premiered on Thursday, is all about “women who were too bad for your textbooks.” Hosted by Alexis Coe, The Wing’s in-house historian, each episode dives into the life of a different rule-breaking woman.

The women themselves? They come from a literal spreadsheet Coe has been building since her days in grad school, and it features hundreds of women on it, women whose stories she’s wanted to dissect.

“It’s important that people realize this is not a podcast in which I’m just telling a biography that I have compiled,” Coe explains to ELLE.com. “I’m actually doing original research. As a historian, because this is what I do, I’m trained in this, I can’t just take any history as literal; I have to check all sources. And what’s been really fun is that when you check the sources, you always find holes and gaps, and you find mistakes… so we actually do break ground in women’s history, and I’m really proud of that.”

First up on the podcast is Stephanie St. Clair, otherwise known as “Queenie,” a gangster in 1920s Harlem, who also used her power to write editorials about voting, legal rights, and fighting against police brutality. Queenie was someone Coe had read about in an academic press book written by LaShawn Harris, and she had thought about her for some time after. At the time, Queenie was the only woman in her arena with a seat at the table, but because at one point she disappeared from history, Coe wanted to figure out what happened to her:

The podcast will also feature women whose histories you may think you know already…but Coe dives deeper. “They are women who have…either been reduced to one thing, usually because their narratives have been told by men, or in the race to catch up with ‘men’s history,’ there have been comprehensive biographies, and we’ve lost the details.” Coe explains that the third episode of the podcast will focus on a 29-year-old Ida B. Wells, who discovers something about her surroundings that changes her life and puts her in danger; it’s a story Coe has wanted to tell since 2013.

“American history has been traditionally told by white men, and they tend to only include other white men in textbooks,” she says. “This is unfortunate for our education, and it’s an embarrassment of riches for a woman’s historian, like me.”

The podcast’s first season will have six episodes with one released each week. You can currently listen to No Man’s Land on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play.