In the 2002 post-apocalyptic comic series “Y: The Last Man,” a guy named Yorick discovers he the last living male on earth, and worldwide chaos erupts. As far as high-concept plots went, it worked pretty well for the opening years of the 21st century.
Today, though, such a scenario might seem a godsend to some, particularly after the awful revelations the #MeToo movement brought to life. And one Finnish entrepreneur has brought her own male-free vision for the world to life — at least in a super-small, temporary way.
When Kristina Roth started the website SuperShe.com, she didn’t have much more than a dream of creating an online space where women could better themselves.
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The market loved it, and Roth had propelled the site to $65 million in gross revenue before she sold it.
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“I’m a computer scientist, and I worked only with men,” she told CNBC. “Ergo, how many times did I have to listen to ‘Hey, blondie, what are you doing here?’”
Propelled by a desire to help women connect with one another, she started throwing luxe networking events exclusively for females. But she wanted something more lasting than an ephemeral getaway.
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“It was stuck in the back of my head, ‘Someday, I wish I could escape to an island,’” Roth says. “The opportunity presented itself when I was in Finland, and of course I needed to strike immediately and make this dream happen.”
That opportunity was an 8.4-acre island in the Baltic Sea, an island that Roth purchased — and opened solely to women.
She explained to CNN Travel that “my philosophy is if you surround yourself with amazing women — and if you can bring together amazing women globally — then you’re going to be the average of that group.”
Though the island is small, don’t imagine that the up to 10 visitors it can accommodate are roughing it. The facilities include saunas, spas, private rooms, and fitness classes.
The island “has blueberry fields in the middle,” Roth said. “So in the summer when you walk, it’s just like blueberry fields forever.”
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Roth has endured some lambasting from pundits, including one critic who complained that the getaway “is a space created by a rich, white woman for other women like her.” But Roth insists that isn’t so.
For her, the getaway is supposed to be “a zone without sexual tension, meaning you just come and you just want to chill. … It’s very interesting to see the whole spectrum of women who are signing up and really reassuring me that this place is needed.”
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