Why be surprised by treatment of women as non-persons?

Once again the media is shocked to find that in Saudi Arabia (and other parts of Arabia by the way) women are treated like non-persons. They were recently banned from the Starbucks in Riyadh because the gender separation partition had fallen down during renovations. The media just can’t believe it. This follows a similarly surprised response from Premier Wynne (Like Holy Cow really?) when it was learned that certain Ontario Colleges had opened campuses in Saudi for men only. Yes it is all stupid and abhorrent but surprising? Where have people been living? This is  how  they do things there. Like Geico, it’s what they do.