No Boys Allowed

The JW Marriott under construction in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is planning to devote its entire 19th floor to women—and only women. It will join a limited number of hotels in America to offer gender-specific rooms once it opens in September.

The special women’s rooms, which will be priced at a US$30 premium, will include female-friendly amenities not found in other rooms, like chenille throw blankets, ionic hair dryers, jewelry holders and special bath products. The women’s floor will also have extra security and a females-only lounge.

Hotel GM George Aquino says that with women now making up about 40% of business travelers, there exists a market for guests willing to pay extra for the sense of added safety and some frills, not to mention the chance to sip a happy hour cocktail without having to worry about getting hit on.

Incidentally, this is nothing new in other parts of the world. London’s Grange City Hotel has been offering a women-only wing for two years. And in the Middle East, whole hotels exclusively for women have cropped up amid concerns it exacerbates gender inequality.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume this is a sound business decision. The question is, in a society like America that values equality, are gender-specific guestrooms OK? Harold Core, a Michigan Civil Rights Commission spokesman, figures somebody will sue over the issue sooner or later. "You cannot deny a person services just because they are male or female," Core told the Houston Chronicle.

NBC’s “Today Show” took up the topic, with one panelist wondering if women-only floors could open the door to other types of niche room reservations, including racial discrimination. That’s probably far-fetched, but it’s a fair philosophical question.

Personally, I’m less concerned about the legality of this than the implications from a guest’s perspective. What if a man wants to book a room at the Grand Rapids JW, but all that is left are rooms on the women’s floor? Does he get turned away? That sure wouldn’t be very hospitable, but short of locating a single woman guest and asking her to relocate to the women’s floor, the hotel would have no other option. Seems to me like a can of worms not worth opening.

Directory of Women-Only Accommodations (Travel-Quest)
The Feminist Take (Women’s Space/The Margins)