When women riders and drivers told us they wanted more control over how they ride and earn, we listened. That feedback led to Women Preferences, features designed to give women the choice to ride with other women. Since our first pilots last summer, we’ve heard just how much that choice matters—from feeling more comfortable in the back seat to more confident behind the wheel.
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Probably gonna get flak for this, but as a man, I have no issues if women want to stick with other women and I don’t particularly care if I have the option to pick whatever driver I want.
Obviously weirdness and sexual misconduct can occur to both men and women from both men and women, but it’s disingenuous as hell to pretend that men being weird or sexual towards women isn’t the most common by a colossal margin.
No flak. I was gonna post the same thing. Women deserve to feel safe too.
The relationship between men and women (and generally all human interactions) in America has gotten so fucking weird. I agree that people should be able to take personal steps to keep themselves safe. My point is we are so rightfully fearful of each other here because we’ve completely abandoned the sense of unity in America. Our social safety net, sense of humanity, belief in the good in the world, justice system, and education is so poor it’s literally statistically unsafe to be alone with a stranger. It’s what happens to your society when hyper individualism takes hold and you end up with a nation of people thinking they are the main character.
I don’t think this issue is reflective of American gender wars in particular. I can think of dozens of countries I’d be way more terrified of being in a car alone with an unknown man as a woman. I’ve never had a bad encounter with any uber drivers in the US, but I have heard directly from drivers that drunk riders can be a fucking menace, so I don’t mind if female drivers would rather take their chances with drunk women vs drunk men.
Two people literally disagree with you that women should feel safe.
This is why these options are now available to women.
Probably gonna get flak for this
Oh please.
You know perfectly well it’s not a controversial opinion.I only added it because I wasn’t sure if there was a population of man-children who feel slighted every time women get anything even remotely positive on Lemmy like there was on Reddit
There is. It’s substantial, but much more subtle than on Reddit. Slurs and outright sexism usually get you banned pretty quick here, so it’s largely just the casual sexism left, but it runs pretty deep. And it’s been here at least as long as I have overall (my oldest account is about 3 yo). In the original wave, the shitty population drove off the vast majority of cis female users within 6 months, which is a huge part of why the demographics around here are so heavily skewed toward men. This is also why the women’s communities, which all died out and were resurrected during the second Lemmy population boom, are so heavily policed to shut men down.
You can tell we have such a population because all posts like these about women getting anything at all, good or bad, always, without fail, have an absolute glut of comments. If you then take the time to read all of them, a solid percentage are very clearly motivated by sexism. Now, commenters are obviously self-selecting, so it’s impossible to say in absolute terms, but of the people who choose to comment on such things, and generously leaving out any comments that may just be poorly worded, I’ve typically seen between 10 and 30% of the comments have such motivations, depending how old the post is and how much visibility it got. It’s not always the same people, either, it’s different shitty people most of the time. Downvotes also flow like wine if you challenge those comments, or call out the trend.
It is worse.
Don’t say that. I came here to get away from those twats and speak with at least somewhat rational people.
Good luck, I will be the first to say that after my experiences, I am downright irrationally horrified by humans, and I can’t handle letting them do anymore damage to me. I prefer the struggle over letting myself be in the hands of others again.
It sucks and will only get worse as time progresses. Lemmy is very anti-woman, pro gun, and pro violence.
It does have less capitalistic bootlicking bastards, but only slightly less.
If you’re worried about capitalism, things don’t look great here either: the top post in my feed right now is a corporate PR release.
(It’s this post.)
Lemmy is filled with men right activists and misogynists that don’t hide.
If it wasn’t controversial MRA wouldn’t exist lol
Fuck uber / lyft / skip / dash anyways.
Yup, I’m also squarely in the “good for them, it doesn’t really affect me in the slightest and they deserve to feel safe” boat. But I also have a sneaking suspicion that the guys like us aren’t the ones who would be upset about this. The Venn diagram of “men who wouldn’t get angry about this” and “fucking creeps” is probably close to being two separate circles.
Wouldn’t it be a single circle?
Hah, I typoed. Fixed now. I shouldn’t comment before I’ve had my coffee.
As a burley man with lots of facial hair, when I’m out for a run, if I’m passing a woman in an isolated area or if I’m passing someone, I do everything I can to look not threatening and alert people of my presence to not startle them. It’s unfortunate that it’s something I feel I need to do, but I’m not out there trying to scare anyone, but when I do on accident it feels like getting kicked in the nuts.
I’m very for women being able to make choices to protect themselves, especially when it’s something like this Uber stuff where it doesn’t hurt someone else. One could argue it could hurt a males revenue, but that would be a weak argument.
Well said, complete and concise.
Right, every single woman on the planet has had multiple uncomfortable, or even dangerous or violent, interactions with men, but people in this thread are pretending that it’s outrageous that someone is acknowledging that very obvious and well-known fact.
I’m a man, and I don’t blame women at all for avoiding us. I don’t know why every woman isn’t a lesbian. Men are generally awful.
I think the issue people are taking is with collective punishment and validating prejudice.
I don’t care as a man if women hate us anymore. So be it, I just want anyone who does not like me, as far the fuck away from me. I don’t trust other people, so why should other people trust me?
I expect other people to not trust me as much as I don’t trust them, and I act like it. I hate walking behind other people, I keep a distance from them as if they have corona, I detest bus rides, because I am crammed and forced into contact with other people. It is a horrific torture every day. I got my co-worker nothing for 8th march, because it can be misconstrued as something else, and I don’t want to risk that, would rather be seen as uncaring or a prick.
100%. I feel better knowing that the women in my life have the ability to not ride around with some random dude. I have done Uber to make ends meet a number of times, and I’d happily accept the decrease in ridership if it means women are less scared.
As a smaller guy with a slightly feminine appearance (that I try to lean away from but how much can I do), I also fear men I don’t know (bad experiences) and wish that somehow I could choose too. But any sort of ‘qualified selection’ would guarantee someone malicious slips through eventually, and that’s obviously not worth it. I’m not going to let jealousy and whataboutism get in the way of progress. On that note, I do worry slightly about how they’re verifying gender? If it’s by DL, this will affect trans folks in some states much more than others. If it’s not, then verification becomes a very big question mark.
I also can’t help but notice all the language is very passive, on one hand it makes sense they wouldn’t be able to guarantee anything but at the same time I find it so hard to trust passive language from any tech company, they’ve all abused my good faith of it into the ground. But I digress.
No flak just thoughts, concerns notwithstanding this is good to see overall. I’m sure Lyft will have to deploy something equivalent to stay competetive.
Lyft already has this feature, it’s called women+
The issue is they feel safer, yet woman are used to traffick other woman because they feel safer around them.
I think women drivers only wanting to pick up women is fine if thats what they want to do. That won’t negatively effect everyone else who is working. It only negatively effects your own potential at making your money.
But riders being able to select women drivers really takes a hard monetary hit against male drivers for the sake of being sexist.
it’s disingenuous as hell to pretend that men being weird or sexual towards women isn’t the most common by a colossal margin.
I’m not convinced. Every guy I know has a story about women being creeps to them, but ask them if they reported it, every single one of them will say no.
And for the very few that do try to report it? They’re usually laughed out of the room. My own mother said “oh but it’s cute when older women do it to younger guys”. That’s not a rare opinion, that’s the default in our culture.
So we don’t show up in any official statistics, because our culture discourages us from reporting, and is less likely to take us seriously if we do.
So no, I’m not convinced that men being weird to women is the most common by any margin. We haven’t even asked men.
Hello. You now know me. I have none of those stories. Women have been nothing but respectful to me.
But if you’re comfortable sharing, I would love to hear your story about how you were harassed by a female Uber driver.
I’m a guy. I was harassed by a female uber driver once (I wrote about it here) and I also…
[sexual coersion trigger warning]
I was raped by a women while intoxicated a few years ago. It didn’t traumatize me heavily, but I definitely was raped. Would you like to hear about it?
I usually have positive interactions with women and appreciate the ones in my life, but just cause these things are rare doesn’t mean they don’t happen.
That’s horrible. I don’t know how to do a spoiler tag, but let’s just say ; same.
So to stay on topic. Would you use a feature that let you not have women drivers?
I don’t take uber or taxis. But I’ve had random women come up to me in public places and grab my private parts, or say sexually suggestive things, and it makes me feel kinda paralyzed, like a deer in headlights, cause what am I gonna do, be the guy that yells at a woman for sexual assault? And then I just never go back in that store for a few months.
Man, that is not my experience at all.
I’m a guy. And even some of the things my (former) guy friends said about women and their relationships dropped my jaw. Same with some family.
The longer I live, the more I think “man… can my sex just not be such pricks? Please? It is not that hard.”
Yeah, I’ve seen some women abuse or take advantage of men too. But it’s not even close to so prominant with women I’ve known, especially when I dive into the issues and see what happened.
I understand why women feel this is necessary, but I also understands that a policy like this paints all men with the same brush. It’s like they are saying “Since a small number of men are creeps, we give you the option to avoid all men”. Which seems to be counterproductive.
Meanwhile, Uber has invasive tracking, where they know everyone’s history. They know how many drives a customer has provisioned without incident. And I have always considered these rideshare things to be particularly safe, because all parties are consenting to the tracking. That’s not guarantee nothing will happen, of course, but it is more unlikely when all parties know Big Uber is watching you.
If Uber had rolled this out and said “you have the option to avoid rides with the opposite gender without an established history in our files”, then I think I would have less of a problem with it. But it seems like I can do everything right, and be respectful of everyone, and give Uber shitloads of money, and still be potentially waiting longer for a ride, just because of my parts. How is that OK?
It’s not about you. Repeat after me: It’s not about you. It’s about women who feel unsafe.
Most sexual assault is not reported.
And you will not be waiting longer, women who choose this service will be. So cut the pity party. You lose absolutely nothing.
The more I think about it, though, the more I think this is a genuine discrimination case. If Uber had rolled this out and said “White drivers can choose to pick up only white passengers”, would that be OK? Or even “Male drivers can choose to only pick up male passengers”?
Heck, I even think if they rolled this out and said “female users can choose a preference for only female drivers”, that might be able to fly, because it’s the buyer of the service expressing that view.
But to me, for the people offering the service, there is no difference between this and someone who doesn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding. When you are offering a service to the general public, you can’t really discriminate like that. Yes, I understand the safety thing. But a store that catered to women wouldn’t be able to bar men from entering at all. Why is a car service any different? Yes, drivers are using their own cars, but it is still a car service.
You know what sucks the most about this? They’re probably gonna get sued over it, either by the Trump DOJ or some shitty Red State AG, who is probably gonna win.
An estimated 20% of women will be sexually assaulted in their life. Half of those will happen by the time that they’re 16. 40% of trans women will be sexually assaulted.
This isn’t about your feelings being hurt.
Sorry, but discrimination is discrimination, even if the people doing the discriminating are doing it for reasons they think are just. If stuff like this gets normalized, it’s only a matter of time before it’s weaponized against others, and the trans community in particular.
There’s a direct line between things like anti-trans bathroom bills and this. Surely I can’t be the only one that sees it this way?
If you, as a passenger, notice no difference in service, because they still find someone to cover the ride in the big pool of potential drivers who aren’t women who only drive for women, does it actually matter if some of the drivers are personally refusing to serve you? Have you actually been discriminated against by the service? Would you even know it happened? I doubt it.
Large numbers of men are creeps, and I say that as a man. That’s the issue, that’s why they’re doing this.
Is there a technical definition of “large” that justifies this? If not, then this is all based on feelings.
I think it’s bad news to generalize entire large groups like this, no matter how good the intentions are.
There have been a few studies. Most estimates put it at around 20% of men engage in actively degrading behaviour, sexual harassment, or have had a history of sexual assault, with between 5-8% actually engaging in violence. It isn’t everyone, but it is around 1 in 5 which is not a small group that could be classified as “Creeps.” It’s a lot higher percentage of the population than, for example, the percentage of violent extremists among Muslims.
Well yeah it’s based on feelings and it definitely just mindlessly repeating the extremely popular male bashing perspective the majority of fediverse users blindly accept as dogma, but it’s also undeniably true. A very large number of us are creeps. If you’d like to get technical, we can pull sexual crimes stats of men vs women and see which number is larger… But, do we really have to?
And it’s not that we’re inherently evil or perverse by nature. It’s that, more often than not, in one on one interactions we are the ones with the potential ability to physically dominate and coerce the human of the other sex. Every once in a while a man will delude himself, snap, explode or give in to whatever dark urge was brooding in him and use that ability in some horrible way.
The probability of an individual of whatever demographic doing something horrible is = (the probability they have the urge to attempt the horrible thing) x (the probability they have the capacity to carry out the horrible thing). It’s really not that complicated.
And If you think women would never do this if they had, on average, larger body frames, more strength and were brainwashed into seeking validation through dominance from an early age, please allow me to introduce you to the fascinating matriarchal pack dynamics of the spotted hyena, where females are larger and stronger than males. Guess which sex is more aggressive and socially dominant?
It’s not that us men are evil. It’s that on average, we have physical power that more often than not, woman do not. Any form of power has the potential to corrupt, cause it can be used for evil and therefore, every once in a while, given a large enough time frame or population, it will.
the extremely popular male bashing perspective the majority of fediverse users blindly accept as dogma, but it’s also undeniably true.
It’s just true, we believe this stuff because it’s true.
What is true, specifically?
A very large number of us are creeps.
Anecdotally, large by the fact that every single woman I know has experienced some form of sexual harassment. And that’s not hyperbolic.
More abstract, large by the fact that it is even a discussion. If a not inconsequential amount of men have harassed women enough that this is just brought up at all, then it’s an issue that needs to be addressed in some form or fashion.
Right, but is this the best way to address this, by telling women “All men are the same, they will harass you, they can’t help themselves. So here, click this button and you will never have to pick one up?”
Best? Maybe not.
But until the underlying social issue gets resolved, it’s a solution to address it.
It’s also one that could be utilized alongside other protections for women, or as a stop gap to get to a better solution.
They still will need to work out other ways to empower women to terminate a ride (both as driver and passenger) without penalty AND to ensure the passenger is let out of the vehicle in a safe place. Along with better reporting, investigations, and consequences for those who do harass.
You said “small numbers” first as the entire basis of your argument and now you pull the “feelings” card on me??!
Well, yeah, this is the same type of shit that is used to denigrate Muslims, or trans people, or any other marginalized group. “Some of them are violent, so we won’t trust all of them!”. I don’t think we really want to go there, much less with half the human race.
You dont think that or you dont feel that?
Since a small number of men are creeps, we give you the option to avoid all men". Which seems to be counterproductive.
Speaking as a man, the majority of men are creeps, but even if they weren’t, it wouldn’t be counterproductive. If it was, say, a 5% chance, one in twenty, that would be far and away high enough of a risk to make a move like this worthwhile. Hell even 1%. And we know the proportion is far greater than that.
They know how many drives a customer has provisioned without incident.
No they don’t, single digit percentages of sexual harassment are ever even reported let alone followed up because almost nobody gives a shit about it. Someone’s squeaky clean history is basically indistinguishable from that of a serial creep.
How is that OK?
Sadly, lots of things in the world aren’t ok. It’s tough out there.
I wouldn’t mind if they’d implemented this the opposite way: if a woman, driver or passenger, encounters a creep, they could report that in the app and then the creep would automatically be banned from riding with women. That way decent men aren’t affected and women keep more choice in drivers/passengers, and only the creeps are singled out.
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Quite the opposite.
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I think this rule a massive improvement, but I also think it’s very restrictive. Women can only choose to avoid all men, rather than just the creeps. So female drivers who need more passengers might feel forced to accept all men, and female passengers who can’t find a ride, might be forced to accept a ride from any male driver. Which might still be a creep.
I think it’s better to weed out the creeps. I think that’s ultimately better for everybody. Make it harder for creeps to get a ride or passenger, instead of making it harder for women.
Maybe both should be an option.
Maybe Uber should be responsible for background checks of their drivers and hold them accountable for their actions and be able to fire them for misconduct. But that might require hiring drivers as actual employees. And then Uber could issue company vehicles.
Oh wait, I’m describing taxi companies that already existed before Uber.
The fact that we allow Uber/Lyft to operate as a way to skirt regulations that were put in place to keep people safe, and then trust Uber will implement work around solutions like this is ridiculous.
Same goes to AirBnB
While I agree with this, and I’m not defending skirting regulations, before rideshare apps, taking taxis was an awful experience. At least half the time, if you try to pay with a credit card, the machine was “broken”, if you wanted to get a ride at a specific time you had to call ahead and hope that a taxi would show up.
Rideshsre apps forced regular taxis to up their game and provide better service, some did and now have their own apps.
I don’t even know what regulations they are skirting. You can’t just sign up to become a driver without submitting information just like any other job. Background checks are required, licenses and what not. People are also supposed to leave feedback if they had a bad experience so I could only imagine that the complaints are surrounding the idea that Uber isn’t following up on the feedback enough. That said if 500 people ride with that driver and rate them well, and 1 person says they were a perv, and Uber looks at it and finds that person has called several male drivers pervs while they get good ratings from everyone else, there could be a problem that those people have a type, or Uber could be thinking the issue is the rider at that point
Uhh I traveled to san Fransisco and there was an Uber booth in mall I was getting some necessities for. The booth dude was like hey come earn some money. I’m not from here , no worries that doesn’t matter, ok well I don’t have a car. That’s fine we can get you sorted on that, it’s a great way to make I little extra money.
No dude I’m not interested.
If you change your mind come back
Worker regulations mostly. Since drivers aren’t employees, they get no benefits whatsoever.
That also only solves half of the problem. Female drivers also want to be safe and doing background checks on everyone who has an Uber account isn’t very practical.
The article says Uber lets women avoid male drivers, which implies that at the very least the Uber account is registered as female, which means female drivers could choose to only accept jobs offered through this system.
That raises the question how Uber is deciding that drivers and clients are women. Could a prospective rapist make a “female” burner account to ambush women? Are trans women who are unrecognized by the state excluded even if they’re at far higher risk than cis women?
Of course the real solution is public transit. Uber is dangerous because it means leaving two strangers together for every single journey. For the vast majority of people taking public transit, there will be many strangers in the same cabin who can all help keep each other in line.
The article briefly talks about female drivers too, which is what I talking about.
Women drivers can toggle on a preference to receive trip requests from women riders, giving them even more control over how they earn.
(and the image/gif seems to imply it’ll exclusively accept rides from women riders)
But yes, if gender is self-declared then it’d be pretty easy to abuse by a malicious rider (I assume, without proof, that drivers have to be vetted somehow). If they require a phone number for new rider accounts it shouldn’t be too hard to keep banned malicious users out, though. There are more foolproof ways, but they have other issues (e.g. ID verification is a privacy nightmare and potentially transphobic depending on local government policies).
It’s been a little while since I’ve used any sort of taxi service because the local public transit is pretty good, but I know a lot of the USA isn’t so lucky there either. That’s more of a cultural problem though.
On a semi-related note, it’s quite ironic that Uber made a change for only their home nation on International Women’s Day.
It wouldn’t even solve the half of the problem, though. Men stop harassing women as soon as they are full time employees, what? Background checks are going to prevent harassment, what?
It’s because men are hazed into behaving in a fucked up way, like “grab her by the pussy, what are you, gay?” type of behavior by other men. It’s fucked up, and there is no authority dealing with these problems at the root. Other men want to fit in, and this soon becomes their actual personality.
I dont think that this is really the problem uber is solving here.
I dont think women passengers or drivers are being physically assaulted during an uber ride, they just feel uncomfortable with men. Maybe its flirting, maybe its a fertive glance, maybe its nothing. It doesn’t really matter whether male drivers have ever done anything to deserve being avoided, the point is that women want to avoid them.
Im a guy. I feel a bit awkward about this, as if someone had said to me “I dont want to interact with you because you might rape me”. Its not a nice feeling but its a misconception of what’s really happening.
Ultimately in any specific instance where a woman chooses not to interact with a man, I absolutely believe its her right to do so. However, I do hope that society doesn’t reach a point where women in general make that choice as a matter of routine.
Uber stopped doing then, but their own data through 2022 claims that 99.9998% of rides ended without a safety incident.
Most sexual assault is committed by abusers who know their victims, not random strangers.
I also think they should be employees. That is however another matter. Being a full time employee has never stopped anyone from engaging in sexual harassment. Workplace harassment is quite common. Let’s not mix up our issues. Hiring them as employees will not protect women.
Agreed. Contract work that isn’t actually contract work should be illegal.
I get it, but it’s sad that society have come to this.
Now add a “Chatty Cathy” / “Leave me the fuck alone, don’t worry I’ll still give you a tip as long as we don’t have to talk” option.
As a man, this makes me sad. As a man, I also understand.
Thank you
give men the option to ride with men as well, and nobody will have an issue with this
Most of the comments here seem to be talking about the politics of the gender roles, but no one really seems to be mentioning that Uber should only be used as a very last resort. Call a Taxi, a friend, take public transit. Do not support the VC startup trash that doesn’t pay their
employees“contractors” living wage.These fucking comments. Anytime anything is done to make women safer men get up in arms and upset. “What about me?” cries the incel.
I don’t necessarily even disagree with this feature but I can’t help but imagine the outrage if that was almost literally any other group of people.
I want to ride exclusively with bilingual Mongolian ginger Zoroastrian jazz enthusiasts over 5’10" to feel safe and demand a feature for me to do so.
God damn it. I’m 5’9
And I’m not Mongolian, dammit.
And I’m losing business simply because I don’t care for jazz
Great! We just happen to have a driver matching your requirements. Unfortunately, demand for bilingual Mongolian ginger Zoroastrian jazz enthusiasts over 5’10" is off the charts! Fares have increased to get more bilingual Mongolian ginger Zoroastrian jazz enthusiasts over 5’10" Ubers on the road: 9001.0x the normal fare
ugh i guess I can do metalheads too.
You mistype and end up with a methhead.
So normal Uber then
I can’t help but I imagine JK Rowling tweeting some day about how she used this feature and was appalled to be driven by a trans-woman.
A lot of white people are afraid of black people. Should we let people choose their driver by the color of their skin? Their ethnicity? The language they speak? Their sexual orientation? Their religion?
Discrimination is bad for everyone else, but somehow for men we just say “eh they have it coming”.
Rowling will use any excuse to be transphobic though
Transphobes will use any excuse to be transphobic.
I’m not sure what your point here is.
I am agreeing with you lol
What other group of… Oh.
I think the discussion misses a key point. Uber avoids any responsibility for its drivers. A normal cab company would hire people for whom they know their real identity. If one of them crosses any lines, they get fired and and getting a new job isn’t as easy as making a new account.
I can’t help but imagine the outrage
Literally only you can prevent that. This is something that affects 50% of the population universally. For some reason you can’t comprehend this being an exception to the rule. Only you can be that change, no one can do that for you. I hope you are able to stop imagining fake outrage one day. It will be a long journey, should you wish to achieve it, but I believe in you.
Did you stop reading as soon as you hit the word outrage?
If you know any women in your life, which I assume by your comment you don’t or they don’t talk to you anymore, ask them when the last time they were sexually harassed.
The fact it might have literally been yesterday shouldn’t be shocking to you.
? I think this is a good thing lol. I am happy women are being protected. I have a sister and a mother and a misogynistic father. We don’t talk to him.
Came here expecting misogyny-adjacent comments.
…It met my expectations :/
Whenever something like this happens where women speak out or something is done to benefit their safety, men just love showing up to give opinions that nobody asked for.
You could paste this article link in the most progressive-minded group you can think of and, like clockwork, a significant amount of men will be like “Ok great, but…” and drop some turd of a comment that beautifully highlights just how ignorant they are as to how unsafe women actually feel.
Hannah Gadsby did a fantastic show called Nannette which heavily goes into these topics and her own personal experiences. I can’t remember the exact quote but she said something like “If this is all surprising to you then you’re not talking with the women in your life.”
Suddenly the concern trolls love pretending like they care about their local ride-sharing economy because a few women will be more selective sometimes.
“If this is all surprising to you then you’re not talking with the women in your life.”
To be fair, maybe Lemmy is less social than “average”? I’m certainly contributing to that statistic.
…Still, as a guy, it’s kind of my experience everywhere. The longer I live, even as isolated as I am, the more I’m bewildered by other men being incapable of following the “don’t be a jerk” rule, incapable of shutting up and listening to women, or doing/saying straight up terrible, sexist things, all while knowing that’s the tip of the iceberg.
I can’t even imagine the experience of being a woman using Uber. It’s mind boggling that so many male commenters wag their fingers like they somehow do.
The women in my life are annoyingly oblivious. Irritatingly clueless, I hate this backwards country. I hate recognizing dangerous situations, and them not seeing it.
Now wheres my option to avoid women drivers on the road? /jk
Honestly is this sexist discrimination in order to further secure corperate markey dominance? Yeah, completly. Do i get what need is being met by it as an option? Also yes.
Of the issues with Uber this isnt one of then is all i am saying.
I honestly don’t see why this should not be an option. I don’t get why people get upset if a man wants the same option to avoid women drivers. Maybe they don’t want someone who will feel uncomfortable with them?
Agreed!
I get it, but it’s discrimination and someone is going to sue them for it.
This is a good thing if you ask most women
And if you ask any male uber driver they just lost potentially 50% of their clientele just because they are born with a penis and other penis people are shitty sometimes
New “not all men” just dropped
I don’t think this will meaningfully hurt male drivers. Most women likely won’t use this option, or they will in scenarios like being drunk and alone only (so very situational). People are pretending like 50% of the population just chose to self segregate at all times for no reason.
Maybe they should take that issue up with the other penis having men who rape and sexually harass/assault women for funsies.
You think they’re checking?
Boo fucking hoo.
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No this is totally about race.
Very few Uber drivers are caucasian.
People are evil, and I am for any isolation, and yes, segregation, as it is simply for the best when dealing with humans. I don’t think you need better proof than the Epstein Files, Panama papers, and what a whole ass world of supposedly mostly good people are complacent in.
As a man, I want to EXCLUDE all women as potential clients. This is acceptable to articulate given the context, no?
Sure. My understanding is that as a driver you can reject certain clients. You don’t like the part of town, or their name or the location they want to be taken to. This right already exists.
this place never fails with its reddit-isms and lack of nuance. If you want data, look at SA data and see the demographics of the victims vs the demographics of the perpetrators. This is a tool to give peace of mind and potentially lower SA on ubers.
Awesome, but they should also give men the option to choose to ride with a man.
There’s already an app that does that.
It’s called grindr.
What if I’ve only been using Uber Black?
You never go back, or so I hear.
That’s great, if you want a black driver.
They should make an app where you have to swipe right on your driver/passenger, and then the app notifies you and you can strike up a conversation and see whether or not you are compatible for ride-sharing.
Can I meet my driver for coffee first, see if it’s worth pursuing a ride?
Lmao!
Some sort of beautiful justice can be imagined where women just sit on corners pouting how they can’t get a decent driver.
I’m a man, but I also prefer women drivers. Their cars tend to be better taken care of and cleaner. they also do a lot better at respecting and pre-empting preferences in regard to heat/music. Maybe it’s just my area, but I’ve actually never had a “normal” experience with a male Uber driver.
Either their car is all clapped out, it’s dirty and smells bad, they’ll be blasting MAGA rap, or they get real weird with the dropoff. (Like, bro my legs do function and I can walk across the street or down the block a little bit, it’s ok, I gave you a different address from where I’m actually going anyway). Never had any issues like that with women as drivers.
I get that they’re doing this for reasons of rider safety, but they should let both men and women express a preference.
Dunno what specifically they do that’s weird around the dropoff but as a former Uber driver, I was just trying to make things as convenient as possible/get a good rating and/or tip from a clean and easy drop-off
I get that, but some of them take it too far. Like fighting traffic to get as close to the door as physically possible, such that it actually takes longer than if I had just been dropped at the corner and walked the half block or whatever.
It would take a lot of bullshit for me to not give 5 stars, but I know not every rider will be like that!
In your defense, Former Uber Driver, I’ve never noticed any difference in the cleanliness or behavior of drivers. They seem to always have cars much newer and cleaner than mine and they are always friendly and professional. Maybe it is different in that other guy’s city.
Dafuk is maga rap ?
Stadium country rap… It’s awful
Hick hop
Kid Rock, Kanye, Minaj, etc.
Sounds not fun to listen to
If you are MAGA, it’s mandatory. Also Village People and Lee Greenwood. And not just the hits. You have to love the deep album cuts.
Honestly, this should be a thing.
Men being triggered by this is so cringe. Ew.
The sad reality is that women have to worry about being attacked… Not all men are creepy but men need to also hold the shitty men accountable too. The “would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a random man” question broke the internet because it was a strong argument and made a lot of men think about who even they feel comfortable with if alone in the woods… Most men said the bear, too… Idk many men who are deathly afraid of women and this isnt me saying that men havent been raped, abused, attacked. No human should have to experience ANY intimate violence. The risks are just less statistically. Its not weird to try and mitigate violence on any app…
I don’t get why they don’t just make this a global option. Anyone can choose their preferred gender. Some women prefer women, some prefer men. Hell, some men prefer men.
I imagine lawyers are the biggest issue. Anti discrimination laws vary greatly by jurisdiction. This type of de jure discrimination against a privileged group to counter de facto discrimination against a marginalized one is the type of situation that is going to be thorny pretty much everywhere, with differing results everywhere.
They’ say they’re doing it for women’s safety, which makes sense. On its face I agree with you that it should be global, to let everyone express their preference for whoever. Assuming men create most of the harassment/assault issues, though, it could be a bad idea to give those same men the ability to get a woman (or a man) delivered to their location at the push of a button. We could even see cases of that ability attracting unsavory types who would otherwise not even consider using Uber. I don’t exactly put a lot of faith in them creating a culture of safety that would prevent it. I myself prefer not men as drivers, and would like the option, but I’m also not a fuckin’ creep.
Eh, this could easily be exploited though, could it not? Just register as a woman looking for a woman client/driver. Is there a verification process to prove you’re a woman?
It probably pulls from whatever’s already on the license. I assume there’s a verification process to drive.
In like, 20 states plus DC you can change your sex on your ID basically on demand (no doctor’s note or court order or whatever). There’s enough Uber drivers out there someone will mark themselves F or X to keep their job options open.
Do you think someone will change their gender legally just so they can make like $15 extra on uber (driver’s perspective) or to get into “female only cars”? (passenger perspective)
I think people will do all kinds of shit for money.
That will get interesting. I can’t remember if there’s id verification on the rider end, but there will probably have to be. That could be what this whole thing is about, come to think of it…
Also, I’m wondering how they’ll treat trans and agender people who don’t have m or f, or who can’t mark their actual gender on their ID in their state.
From what I’ve seen in a cluster F and NB as one category separately from M.
They still have to treat a trans M to F as if they were an M, unless they transitioned completely, for practical purposes.
Don’t even bother with agender, apparent gender will be used, obviously.
Because a woman does not care what gender you want to be, only how much risk you are to her, obviously.
From what I’ve seen of these apps, they cluster NB and F together. And I’m assuming they don’t go further than state ID for validating, but I can’t say for sure one way or the other.
Anyone can break any law or regulation, doesnt mean that we give up laws and regulations.
And likely not. Most services already ask you about your gender (even like reddit or tumblr) so I assume that will suffice and we wont have “ID verifying gender”
Or maybe some conservative hack will propose ID verified gender, who knows.
So the answer to someone breaking a law or regulation is… more laws and regulations?
If someone is going to assault another human, they aren’t going to hit a “oh boy I better not lie to uber” roadblock…
Let’s request an option for a blonde driver with a huge rack
You can already choose your driver or passenger. All this is is streamlining something that’s common.
Fair enough, I don’t use driving services so honestly don’t know what the experience is like.
