The kingdom's first hotel exclusively for females opened yesterday, offering plush lodgings with a full-range of health and beauty facilities for ladies to pamper themselves, away from the accusing eyes of a male-dominated society.

"Inside this physical structure, we are all women," said the Luthan Hotel's executive director Lorraine Coutinho. "We even have bell-women. We are women-owned, women-managed and women-run, from our IT engineer to our electrical engineer.

I see potential for a lot of subversion in something like this. Not that I ever will, but let's say I'm a moderate Western businessperson and I have need to do something in the Kingdom. I'd patronize this place just for the statement it makes. I'd like to believe some of the women who own it also encourage other women to strike it out for themselves. Kingdom women are so restricted, but I bet they are just as competitive businesspeople as men. What do you think? Can anything good come from "gender apartheid?"