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.
Women’s fears of men seem like it will naturally encourage gender segregation in society, if women have control of the formation of that segregation it will lead to privileges and advantages exclusive to women. Since society has finite resources, any community resources that are used exclusively for the beneficial segregation of women, can easily produce inequalities. This is a problem without a good solution.
It’s shocking to me how so many people I know who are woke as fuck and quick to shout down any bigotry are so quick to drop all of their principles to hate men.
Segregation never works, and only serves to foster fear, hatred, and division within society You cannot define what a “woman” is in a way that excluded trans-women without also excluding some cis-women with them Your gender identity is what you say it is. Others should do their best to remember any pronouns or name changes Crime is too complicated and nuanced to be reduced to statistics, which are often used by racists and bigots to justify racist and bigoted policies It’s racist to cross to the other side of the street when a person of color comes walking towards you on the side you currently are on. It’s up to you to “Men” are evil monsters who cannot be trusted and need to be locked away
It baffles me how so many people can have all of these ideas, including the last one, and not see the cognitive dissonance there. It’s succumbing to fear and hatred, the same methods of divisive propaganda that has harmed every other group.
Because they form their worldview around their own interests, without realizing it. The label of progressive does a lot to assume moral right and inclusiveness which hides biases of self interest. Many of the beleifs people hold were not formed from the effort of reasoning by them but adopted from the authority of progressive ideology. Religion works in much the same way. It takes concerted effort, emotional regulation and sacrifice to build a rational and consistent worldview which is something most people, even progressives, rarely attempt.
Since we’re doing unsubstantiated conclusions, we’ll be better off with women in charge. Because, women being human, they are capable of vile self-serving and that works out well for everyone.
women wanting equal rights while refusing to commit their fair share of violent crimes is bullshit.
You’re free to do so and people are free to disagree if they find your claims engaging. How many comments on the internet do you think are unsubstantiated claims? I’m guessing this isn’t the response you give for the vast majority of them, is it? What compelled you to do so for this one?
Men could quit being disgusting predators…
The vast majority of men never were. How few do you need to feel safe? No men ever? Do you even know?
How would you know? Ask your friends and father, your siblings and uncles, how many of them have sexually assulted or harassed a woman; do you believe them? Have you ever cat called or leered? Made inappropriate jokes or comments? Are you a rapist?
More than 1/3 of women have been sexually assaulted; that means of your mom and grand mothers one of them has likely been vicitimized by the male bullshit you are trying to claim isnt an issue. Why not ask them? Think you can handle the truth?
Sexual assault rates of women are not direct indicators of the number of, or gender of, perpetrators. 1/3 of women being victims doesn’t make 1/3 of men perpetrators. That does not follow.
Asking people if they’re a sexual abuser isn’t going to have them saying yes. This is a known barrier in research to getting accurate information of prevalence because people won’t be honest if you ask them if they are an abuser. So asking men I know really isn’t great advice, is it?
Also let me guess, 1/3 of women experience sexual assault of some kind, at some point in their life? That’s a pretty wide net to cast…
Perhaps you can clarify what makes someone a ‘disgusting predator’ so we’re both not he same page?
Go have those conversations.
For reasons that should be obvious, no.
can we have an option to not get a ride with you specifically? regardless of your gender
A ride with me is already not an option for you.
that’s good news.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
It makes sense for women but it is a thin line to cross. It does border on discrimination and women drivers are not automatically safer. It does reinforce negative stereotypes about gender norms and we really need to talk about that. Though at the end of the day, a woman’s safety and peace of mind is very important. So guess there’s not much they can do but they really should make a statement about this.
this smells like a setup for some legal strategy against trans-folks.
but it still seems like a good idea.
can i have only uber rides with high credit ratings drivers ?
this smells like a setup for some legal strategy against trans-folks
Funny thing is, you’re absolutely right. Even if Uber doesn’t mean to lay the groundwork for a future culture war, they would love more infighting while they can shirk responsibility towards their workers.
Said it yesterday about this on a post on my instance.
I drive for Uber occasionally, I am a guy, and got offered this option to only accept women riders. That doesn’t seem right…
Maybe Uber is trying to start a new dating app. “The best way to pick up chicks is to trap them in your car.”
This is hitting hard cause I went from a '05 Hyundai sonata to a new Toyota Avalon, and the auto lock feature when shifting it of park still fucks with me and riders.
I read about a horror story on Reddit of an Uber driver who engaged the child locks so they had a reason to open the door for the rider and I desperately want to avoid that perception!
FYI, most newer cars have a way for you to turn off the auto lock feature. It is usually a setting in menus, but some might have you do things like close all the doors, turn the car on, and then hold the unlock button for 10 seconds.
Worst case scenario is it has to be done through the programming tool, so if you can’t figure out how to do it yourself, then the next time you have it serviced tell them to turn off the auto-locks.If I remember correctly, when auto locks were first introduced some countries saw them as dangerous so automakers were required to provide a way to turn it off.
Just tucked with the settings and you’re absolutely right!
Thanks homie!
give men the option to ride with men as well, and nobody will have an issue with this
Lyft been doing this since last year too. In Chicago our group of 5 was told to have our two men seated in the back row because the driver wasn’t comfortable with men. We were confused but the driver knew the ride was requested by a woman in our group and therefore assumed the whole group for the Lyft XL would be women I guess?
Lyft had been doing that for a while.
Also,
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
What a relief. I’m glad they addressed the only problem with Uber /s
Let’s have no progress over some progress then, I guess.
This is a sign of lack of real progress. Real progress would be building a society where people don’t choose the bear and genders arent something that divide us. Feels shitty to be viewed as a predator.
Uber is not society. It is making a decision it thinks will increase its revenue. It is indeed a sign of a lack of progress, but the people responsible for the progress you want are us. I’m not chiming in on the policy itself, but your comment makes it feel like you are not as committed to the progress you want made. There are men in this thread saying that they hate what women have to put up with, but understand it and want them to feel safe. That’s not what I’m getting from your comment. If I had to choose between being in a forest with you vs them I’d choose them because it seems like you’re more concerned with how you’re perceived than how other people are actually affected. I can imagine that being viewed as a predator must be uncomfortable, but women are often viewed as prey and that’s not great either. I don’t want to start playing at oppression olympics, but the fact that a post about a move to theoretically increase women’s safety has you responding about your feelings as a perceived predator makes it seem like you don’t think we as a society should do things that make women feel safer because it makes you feel like you’re being viewed as a predator.
I for the most part don’t mind being around male strangers, but the ones that give me extra room on a sidewalk or in a bar are undoubtedly the ones I’m most comfortable around and ones I’d be most likely to engage with. Not because the others make me feel unsafe but because they make me feel safe. It’s like if you invite someone into your house you can offer them food or a drink to help them feel comfortable or you can just not. You’re not necessarily a bad person for not offering something, just potentially perceived as less inviting. Society is still seen and felt as the dominion of men for a lot of people, so when men go out of their way to make space for us, it signals that they are friendly and welcoming and want us to feel safe. I think if you want to work on that divide, the best thing to do is make the women you’re around feel safe. It’s unfortunate, but it’s up to us to destigmatize our own identities. I just don’t think your comment does that.
That’s why I said “only problem with Uber” in bold and with a “/s” at the end.
I used a tone indicator to denote sarcasm, especially about the part I put in bold. You should read my comment as, there is more than one problem with Uber.
Is that a controversial take on Lemmy?
It’s a “no shit” comment.
People are tired of these lazy negative takes and are letting you know that you’re putting them out there. For my part I end up deleting a fair amount of my posts/comments after I type them these days, noting internally that I am doing little more than whinging for the sake thereof; give it a whirl sometime.The biggest “no shit” comment was @Wammityblam@lemmy.world’s brave “As a man, I’ll get flak for this, but Uber is doing a good thing” one. Meanwhile the reason Uber has these problems remains unaddressed. The problems this policy is bound to cause also remain unaddressed (ETA: I see you really don’t like when people bring them up)
But I guess Uber is the Woke Hero of the Day.
Fuck uber / lyft / skip / dash.
Alhamdulillah, the women are imposing Sharia upon themselves.
preference, let me drive.
So does this mean there is going to gender verification to go along with age verification?
Seems like something that would happen in this timeline.
And the interesting question is what if XY human being identifies itself as a woman?
Why’s that interesting?
Are they going to be doing DNA tests? Pants checks?
It is ineresting because a man could pretend that he idetifies himself as a woman. What should a driver/passenged do in such a situation?
Ah we’ve never seen this before. Something something Epstein.
Fair.
