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Uber will let women drivers and riders request to avoid being paired with men
- seydor 1y agoMen won't be able to do so?
- rexxy404 1y agosigh : Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.
- ectospheno 1y agoParents comment is the most interesting thing about the article to me as well. Equality means something or it doesn’t.
- jobs_throwaway 1y agoIts a fair question. Also likely opens them up to discrimination lawsuits if its only offered to one sex
- nchmy 1y agoAre provocative things not interesting? And how is this provocative? It seems to be a pretty simple question/observation about the core of the matter
- nicce 1y agoOne of the most interesting questions to be fair.
- rs186 1y agoOh, I can assure you that there are many lawsuits filed for gender discrimination against men in workspaces, some of which are notable and made headlines. If lawsuits can happen, I don't see why it is a problem just want to discuss the topic here.
- ryandv 1y agoThey should be able to. I have spoken with several drivers who are afraid of taking female passengers because of spurious assault allegations.
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoHow many frivilous assault allegations against male drivers are there? I've never heard of this happening personally.
- Lionga 1y agoHow many assaults against female drivers are there? I've never heard of this happening personally.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoMe neither. I hear about assaults against female passengers but I don't believe I've read or heard about one against female drivers. I've asked a few women I've gotten in Ubers with and they say they've had some dicey situations but no out right assaults. But I don't think you were asking genuinely and just wanted to be snarky without contributing to the conversation :)
- Mawr 1y agoHis is the best response in this thread. The point is that whether you've personally heard of something or not is not a great indicator of anything. To answer the original question, wherever there is any power imbalance, there will be abuse. Priests, teachers, parents vs children; boss vs employee; "vulnerable" females vs "aggressive" males. A man complains about assault by a woman, everyone laughs. A woman complains about assault by a man, he gets thrown in jail.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nerdjon 1y agoWhile I can kinda buy the argument for why men may want to do this, it is also complicated and how far do we go. (saying this as a guy for the record) Is it that you are either free for all or you can limit to your own sex or a sex of your choice? So could men say they only want woman? What about trans people. Do we start adding in religion, political affiliation, race, etc etc etc. Woman not feeling safe with unknown (and largely unvetted) Male drivers (or passengers) is a valid concern. It feels more like a bandaid than an actual fix, but it is an "Easy" solution to a problem. The ideal should be that we don't need this, not that we add in more filters like this. But for many reasons we as a society are not there.
- jigguit 1y ago[flagged]
- sneak 1y agoFact of the matter is, this is institutionalized discrimination. It might be beneficial, but it's discrimination. From a purely logical standpoint, if this type of discrimination is tolerated, others should likely also be tolerated. If other types of discrimination are not tolerated, then this type of discrimination should not be tolerated either. It's no different than white people not wanting black drivers, and Uber supporting that.
- 1y ago
- AlexandrB 1y agoI'm curious how that would play out over time. Since it would be male drivers who have no intention of harassing/assaulting female passengers that take this option, would you get a "Dead Sea" effect of proportionally more predators being left in the "accepts riders of any sex" group? Over time this could create an incredibly sex-segregated service.
- AlecSchueler 1y agoTo ask for only women? The biggest threat factor for men is other men.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago[dead]
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoThis feels like an indirect response to Waymo. I've heard from women in the Bay Area that they just feel safer taking Waymos.
- __turbobrew__ 1y agoIm a man, and feel safer taking waymo as well.
- metalliqaz 1y agoThat seems reasonable. If that's the case, I don't know how successful it will actually be for that purpose if anyone can choose for themselves to identify as female.
- smileysteve 1y agoWaymos, or Uber blacks... have a lot going for them. Initially, the 2008 cut off for Ubers, and the related on site inspections led to high quality; but over time, I've been in more vehicles with check engine and other lights on -- and heard more failed shocks (and mounts) than I would like to ride in; though the suspension is more sketch in a cab.
- DANmode 1y agoCheck engine light feels like a safety issue to you? You know you can receive one from improperly tightening a gas cap on some vehicles..?
- superkuh 1y agoThis doesn't seem so much a progressive behavior as a result of segregation and broken cultures. And indeed that seems to be the origination of the practice. >In 2019, Uber rolled out a women rider preference feature for female drivers in Saudi Arabia after women won the right to drive in 2018.
- shafyy 1y agoI think the direction we should go in is not to separate genders, but unify them. For example, there shouldn't be separate bathrooms or parking spaces. The more you make the separation, the more divided a society becomes. Just look at many muslim socities like Arabic countries where almost everything is separated. Now, I am a male, but many females, including my partner, actually advance this point of view. Also look at more equal socities like in Nordic countries, and you'll see that there's much less separation than in countries with more gender inequality. Of course, we can argue cause and effect and what not, but I still stand by the opinion that separation also has an effect on gender equality, not only the other way round.
- ryandv 1y agoI disagree. Sex segregation is the only way to ensure positive, safe, and inclusive women-only spaces that are free from patriarchal and toxic male influence. Any comparisons between this policy and puritanical religious societies are purely coincidental.
- raxxorraxor 1y agoI think the qualifiers you use hint at are sourced from a puritanical religous belief itself for that matter. There are respective shelters for edge cases, but this should not be generalized towards most public spaces.
- ryandv 1y agoYou are implying that public space should not be safe and inclusive?
- AlexandrB 1y agoSafety and inclusion are often in conflict with each other. The feature being discussed, for example, is meant to improve safety for one group (women) by excluding another group (men). At the extreme end, we exclude convicted criminals from participating in society for the safety of others.
- alistairSH 1y agoTwo questions that came to mind... - What's the prevalence of female drivers on Uber (I'm assuming ridership is close enough to 50/50 to not really matter)? - What's the sexual assault rate on Uber vs traditional cabs, sedan service, etc? And versus baseline rate in general?
- SoftTalker 1y agoI've never had an Uber where the driver wasn't male. I don't use rideshares very often though.
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoI use Uber often. My ratio to male to female drivers is about 70:30
- missingcolours 1y agoI've had a few, but probably 90%+ male. DoorDash has more women, probably because of the reduced risk from not having men in your car.
- rs186 1y agoJust looked at my own ride history. All 14 Lyft rides in the past 12 months were with male drivers. Most Uber rides were with male drivers as well.
- csa 1y ago> What's the prevalence of female drivers on Uber Article says uber had about 20% female drivers in US in 2015. “A survey from the company in 2015 found that about a fifth of its U.S. drivers were women.”
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- skinwill 1y agoThis will do more harm than good. I guarantee it.
- lucyjojo 1y agohow so?
- NiloCK 1y agoInteresting to see downstream pricing effects from this. In general, riders with specific filters applied get higher quotes than riders without them. Uber either: - lets the market equilibrium naturally settle (meaning women requesting woman drivers "pay a safety premium" - hard PR sell) - manually suppresses the difference, creating distortions that I can't immediately imagine or articulate. Same on the driver's side.
- SoftTalker 1y agoThere will be exactly two options: Pay more, or wait longer. There's no avoiding simple economics.
- NiloCK 1y agoSubsidies can avoid simple economics! The third option is to dramatically juice the wages of woman drivers.
- byteknight 1y agoWhile it is totally nonsensical, as as suggestion as a business practice, I will indulge in the idea as if you are being genuine. You cannot give a gender more money to do the same job with the criteria being a specific gender. That is blatantly illegal.
- thayne 1y agoIt seems to me like this would also be illegal. You are giving one gender an option you aren't giving the other gender. And you are making it so one gender has more potential customers than the other, which is effectively giving them more money. But whether the law is enforced is a whole other question.
- 1659447091 1y ago> You are giving one gender an option you aren't giving the other gender. A simple solution then is to make the feature a `custom request for the same sex driver/passenger`. Then males can request males and females can request females. Or they (driver/passenger) can simply use it as
- iJohnDoe 1y agoThis should work in all directions. Male passengers should be able to request male drivers only. Male drivers can request male passengers to avoid any hassle of female passengers. Also, lesbians can be just as predatory towards females.
- ortusdux 1y agoI feel like a better solution would be to make a version 2 of Beacon that includes cameras. https://www.uber.com/us/en/beacon/ https://www.uber.com/us/en/beacon/
- throwforfeds 1y agoMy wife gets hit on and asked out all the time when taking Ubers/Lyfts by herself. It's unfortunate, but it's just a reality for women.
- colechristensen 1y agoReport it an give 1 star every time.
- Marsymars 1y agoAlso report it to your city if they have a mechanism for registering rideshare drivers.
- happytoexplain 1y agoI rarely use these services, so I don't know the facts, but multiple times I have heard a woman say she is afraid to give a bad rating or report because the driver picked her up at her home, so he might return. I assume drivers can't see who is reporting/rating, but the fear is that they can use basic logic to make an assumption about who it was.
- bethekidyouwant 1y ago[flagged]
- AlecSchueler 1y ago> So you put all future women in danger ... This is victim blaming. They are taking the steps necessary to protect themselves after having been assaulted.
- happytoexplain 1y agoFirst, I don't know why you're using the word "you". Second, if I was the person in question, why would you punish a woman for expressing a fear by verbally abusing her like this? Besides being a hideous thing to do, it also teaches her to not voice fears in the future. Wouldn't the obvious talking point be the thing causing the fear, rather than insulting and belittling a person for being afraid? >afraid that whatever Uber puts in place to anonymize your bad rating is insufficient? This seems like a reasonable concern. Why are you framing it as an insult, as if you were trying to bully a person into trusting a company? Why would a person trust Uber/Lyft to be transparently secure and technically thorough about this detail? In other services, service-providers can and have used basic reasoning skills to identify clients who gave bad reviews. >I suggest clicking help and reporting the driver directly I don't understand - reporting suffers the same problem, as I mentioned in the comment you're replying to.
- sidcool 1y agoI don't like it, but I understand.
- jizzypants 1y ago[dead]
- startupsfail 1y agoUber should let men drivers and riders request to avoid being paired with women and other genders
- itsalotoffun 1y agoThis is what being part of the problem looks like. Not ok.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- majikaja 1y agoIf men don't want to be around women out of fear of being accused of something I think that should also be respected.
- zahlman 1y agoPart of what problem? The problem of expecting men and women to be treated fairly, according to the same rules, without special privileges for one or the other?
- Forgeties79 1y agoThis feels like another flavor of "All Lives Matter" and is equally tone deaf.
- gruez 1y agoBecause it's only discrimination if you're doing it against the oppressed gender? I don't think intent is to have that as a feature that someone actually uses, it's to show the absurdity of it if the roles are reversed.
- Forgeties79 1y agoBut it’s not absurd and systems like that have to consider power dynamics before declaring “reverse discrimination”
- xlbuttplug2 1y agoAre drivers required to provide sex assigned at birth? If not, we might see male drivers conveniently identifying as women to circumvent this (presumably to minimize wait times between rides). Although I guess they'd get canceled on a lot.
- swat535 1y agoThis is interesting, it made me think of trans genders and other minorities. It would be nice to select LGBTQ friendly rides for example. I also wonder if you transition, can you change your "sex" on Uber? how would that work and how would they prevent abuse?
- readthenotes1 1y agoI'd want drivers who identify as "safe and quiet"
- AlecSchueler 1y agoI think the attack vector is traditionally opportunistic. Horny driver suddenly has a vulnerable woman in his car and they're in a secluded area, boom there's an assault. Any driver who is so premeditated about his assault plans that he would sign up to Uber pretending to be a woman probably has easier and more direct ways to access victims that are less likely to blow up in his face.
- zahlman 1y agoThe premise here is not that men would "pretend to be women" (and sooner or later, a trans activist will decide that this charge has been levied at the wrong target) as part of a "premeditated assault plan". The premise is that men would do it either in order to protest the policy, or in order to retain access to business that they had before.
- jeffbee 1y agoAs the article barely manages to mention, Lyft launched this years ago.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- comrade1234 1y agoI talked with a woman uber driver in Ann Arbor. She was telling me that she lives in Toledo but drives up to Ann Arbor/Romulus (DTW airport) because the customers are safer and overall nicer while in Toledo she made it sound like everyone's an asshole.
- 1123581321 1y agoThat’s on brand for Toledo.
- sneak 1y agoDiscriminating against all men because some men are violent criminals is like discriminating against all black people because some black people are violent criminals. One type of stereotyping and discrimination is socially acceptable. The other is not. Classifying and disadvantaging a huge group of people because of the actions of a tiny fraction of that group is unjust. It is my personal belief that neither type of discrimination should be acceptable.
- xlbuttplug2 1y agoIt won't work out for riders initially since wait times for women drivers will be egregious so people will just switch back to no preference. But I'm curious how many women would now feel safe enough to sign up as drivers given this option. If it does take off, male drivers won't get as many riders but that's ok since their demand was inflated by lack of choice anyway.
- scoofy 1y agoIs this legal? >The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. https://www.eeoc.gov/sex-based-discrimination https://www.eeoc.gov/sex-based-discrimination
- morkalork 1y agoGood thing uber driver's aren't employees /s But seriously, wouldn't this service offering fall under whatever legal loop hole exists for women only gyms?
- scoofy 1y agoIANAL, but I don't think this changes the legality of the discrimination against male independent contractors, because the riders are employing them. My understanding is that women-only gyms typically operate as 501(c)7 nonprofit private clubs, which are allowed to discriminate. It would be effectively impossible to rework that structure into a ride-sharing app.
- jasode 1y ago>, but I don't think this changes the legality of the discrimination against male independent contractors, because the riders are employing them. Riders don't create a official "W-2 employee" relationship with a Uber driver as defined by the Internal Revenue Service. So the discrimination laws you're thinking of don't apply to riders. It's the same legal status for Uber to offer a gender option just like the existing childcare platforms to find babysitters or medical provider directories to find doctors. Both the babysitter and doctor platforms are legally allowed to let customers filter on gender. Parents want to specify female-only for babysitters because they're afraid that males are more likely to be pedophiles.
- scoofy 1y agoReading up on "bona fide occupational qualification" and thought this might be helpful, as there is a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_qualification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_fide_occupational_qualifi...