Discussion The Uber women only safety feature is extremely good actually.

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

I had like 20 Uber encounters in my entire life, all were men , some that were wholesome and cool , some that said nothing and a lot more than I'd like to say which suffered from online russian propaganda and other BS. Had I been a girl or a trans girl, idk if I would have felt safe among these specific men. Even as I am now (normal looking for my birth gender) I didn't fear for myself that much since they are not attracted to me but I felt extremely disgusted by some of them and what they said.


I once sighed and said "can't wait to get home" and the guy literally had a mini tantrum because he felt it was about his behaviour; like man shut up and drive?
I booked you to get driven by you to my desired location (preferably in peace) not to be lectured about some bullshit philosophy you had. He also asked where I was going and I even said to the dentist; YES! I did say "can't wait to go home" mainly because of him but I also had just been to the dentist to get a teeth pulled, could have been that too you know? but no he immediately assumed it was his own doing I WONDER WHY? he probably knows that what he was saying was extremely disgusting and off putting. (he was talking about how despite his baldness he was still hitting on some young girls (high school) and asked me if I think he was too ugly for them; I reported the fucker, he was in his 40's)


So yeah I stand by what I said in the title.

 

[Ch4in3dcr0w]

Never used uber or any other form of online "taxi" but i dont even know why such a option is wrong. I dont think it will solve the small talk problem i guess women will feel more comfortable having small talk with other women but if the problem is just small talk in general its not going to go away ;(. Overall i dont think it will solve the problems some people have with uber overall but if the men are the problem then i dont feel like its a problem ;)
Forgot to add that any weird suggestive comments from men also will go away so thats another + and thats why it for sure should be an option

 

[brokenspirited]

I... just sit in awkward silence while the driver listens to music or has a phone call.

 

[Dejected 55]

On the one hand I get it... but on the other... women can be creepy and lecherous and abusive too... Do men have a men-only option? What if you are a gay or lesbian, couldn't you get the same harassment from a same-sex driver? What are your options then?

I think the true solution is to not have drivers who misbehave able to keep that job. I don't know how you fully police it, though, especially if a lot of passengers might not fully come forward for fear of not being believed or reprisal of some form against them.

A woman, for instance, who complains too much about male drivers harassing her... even 100% legitimate complaints, probably gets flagged in the system as a "complainer" and might get refused rides. You know this happens in other walks of life.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

As a woman, I don't give a shit about uber or whatever. I just use public transportation. I honestly don't get the point of this thread.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

On the one hand I get it... but on the other... women can be creepy and lecherous and abusive too... Do men have a men-only option? What if you are a gay or lesbian, couldn't you get the same harassment from a same-sex driver? What are your options then?

I think the true solution is to not have drivers who misbehave able to keep that job. I don't know how you fully police it, though, especially if a lot of passengers might not fully come forward for fear of not being believed or reprisal of some form against them.

A woman, for instance, who complains too much about male drivers harassing her... even 100% legitimate complaints, probably gets flagged in the system as a "complainer" and might get refused rides. You know this happens in other walks of life.

I mean I agree , most drivers who misbehave should get fired. It's hard to police it. I'm from an eastern european country so most of my encounters with taxi uber or even public transportation have been met with shit people in like 20-30% of the time. It won't change here in the least. Complaints don't really do anything, I think Uber has a star system and people can give you stars based on it; not sure how much that matters.

And yes you could get harassment from same-sex driver if you are gay or lesbian, how would they know though...

As a woman, I don't give a shit about uber or whatever. I just use public transportation. I honestly don't get the point of this thread.

I use public transportation too; I made this thread because I saw this feature met with disdain mostly, maybe it's the online algorithm or me not knowing about places where more calm and collected people talk about these things. Personally I saw it as something good that could help people and wanted to talk about it somewhere.

Even with public transportation. In my country an underage girl was taking the public bus and a guy touched her with his hand and was jacking off to her , that was like 2 months ago and she went to the police and nothing could be done about it because she wasn't touched with his hands indecently or directly touched with his penis; it is not because the man didn't do anything wrong, he did, even by law he can be trialed, it's just that police doesn't protect in this country.

I'm happy if you get to your desired locations using public transportation and have no uneasy feelings on the road; that's a good thing and it's the way every type of transportation should be

 

[Dejected 55]

Randomly... here in the US there have been reports of women and young girls assaulted by police or demanded to "give favors" to police. Sometimes the girls victimized had been arrested for something legitimate and were harassed for sexual favors in exchange for leniency, but I think in a few cases the women were already victims and the police turned out to be not much better.

So... there's scum to go around from cabbies to Uber drivers to even police, sadly. It's so horrible when it seems like we keep learning of new ways people are horrible and victimize others in vulnerable positions. It's hard to figure out how to really curb this stuff. Humanity seems to really not want to stick around sometimes.

Also... and again I can only speak from the American perspective... though I suspect this is probably true elsewhere as well... People have this annoying tendency to not believe a thing unless it happens to them or someone they know. So, women talk about a story like this of being harassed by an Uber driver and a lot of the reaction is going to be "that doesn't happen" or "what are you complaining about" or "don't use Uber then"...

I mean, sure, every once in a while someone lies or exaggerates... but to be casually dismissive of anyone's story and not even consider it... or worse, to believe it but still dismiss it as "that's life" and "get over it" is sad to me.

It's literally why we can't have nice things.

 

[NoPoint2Life]

I think it certainly can't hurt. I'm surprised of the more negative reactions on this thread. Yes you can still be harassed by a woman, but taking an Uber at night and not worrying as much that you will be assaulted sounds comforting to me

 

[GlassMoon]

I mean I agree , most drivers who misbehave should get fired. It's hard to police it. I'm from an eastern european country so most of my encounters with taxi uber or even public transportation have been met with shit people in like 20-30% of the time. It won't change here in the least. Complaints don't really do anything, I think Uber has a star system and people can give you stars based on it; not sure how much that matters.

Maybe the answer is as long as it's economic and people still use it despite the bad ratings, nothing will change. And depending on the payment, are they able to recruit well-behaved drivers? In the end, I doubt they introduce this feature to protect anyone, just for economic reasons. If they can get more women to use their service with this option, mission accomplished. I think a rating system would not rely on the rating of a single passenger, but rely on a certain number of ratings. If they gather enough data, they could probably find "drivers which passengers like you" rated well. Then again, there may be too much scarcity for this to work and it may not be economic.

I always tend to think that police and the legal system are trustworthy, maybe I was raised this way. Reading your posts made me realize that this is not always the case, especially depending on where one lives, sadly.

 

[Dejected 55]

I think it certainly can't hurt. I'm surprised of the more negative reactions on this thread. Yes you can still be harassed by a woman, but taking an Uber at night and not worrying as much that you will be assaulted sounds comforting to me

I don't question the notion of the OP so much as the general concept of men = bad and must be feared all the time but women = cool and always to be trusted bit.

I mean, yeah... a lot of men are fucking horrible. I haven't known any truly evil men, but I've definitely known men I wouldn't trust around women I know if those women were alone and more vulnerable. But, are we really living in a world where women are that afraid of all men all the time? It's horrible if it is true, but it just doesn't seem real to me.

 

[sickofwaiting]

i think the women only driver option is a good idea. it's not about saying all men are dangerous. it's about recognizing that women deserve autonomy, comfort, and choice in situations where we're often made to feel vulnerable.

rideshare apps have made things more convenient, but they haven't erased the risk. a 2019 investigation by uber found nearly 6,000 reports of sexual assault in just two years, and 90 percent of those were reported by women. that's not a small number. and even beyond the worst-case scenarios, there's a constant layer of discomfort women have to navigate when getting into a car with a male stranger. we know the feeling of being watched too closely, asked too many personal questions, or wondering if we're overreacting or underreacting.

giving women the option to choose a female driver isn't extreme. it's realistic. it's protective. more than anything, it gives back a sense of control.

women don't owe men their presence. no male driver is entitled to a female rider. as paying customers, we should be able to choose the experience that makes us feel safest. and if that means preferring a woman driver, that should be okay.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I use public transportation too; I made this thread because I saw this feature met with disdain mostly, maybe it's the online algorithm or me not knowing about places where more calm and collected people talk about these things. Personally I saw it as something good that could help people and wanted to talk about it somewhere.

Even with public transportation. In my country an underage girl was taking the public bus and a guy touched her with his hand and was jacking off to her , that was like 2 months ago and she went to the police and nothing could be done about it because she wasn't touched with his hands indecently or directly touched with his penis; it is not because the man didn't do anything wrong, he did, even by law he can be trialed, it's just that police doesn't protect in this country.

I'm happy if you get to your desired locations using public transportation and have no uneasy feelings on the road; that's a good thing and it's the way every type of transportation should be

Who gives a shit if a few dudes online aren't happy about it. Again, I don't get the point of this even being a thread

 

[Angst Filled Fuck Up]

Former Uber driver here. First off, they're only piloting this in a handful of larger cities to begin with. That's because the number of drivers is significantly lower in smaller cities and most drivers are male. So if a person were to select "female driver only" in my town for example, they might be waiting three hours for a ride.

My feeling overall is that it's a good thing. There have been many reports of drivers raping female passengers on both Uber and Lyft, and if it prevents even one incident then it was worth it.

Even though rideshare companies do background checks on their drivers, a lot of basement dwellers and dudes with bad intentions end up slipping through the cracks and being able to sign up. They sometimes can't handle having (attractive) female passengers in their car and act out as a result. It makes SA pretty difficult to prevent because these people have no prior record, but for some reason they can be prone to behaving poorly when unmonitered in their own vehicle.

 

[Dejected 55]

I feel like we're dancing around the real problem here. It's not that men are inherently horrible and should be feared... it's that Uber and Lyft andthese companies have pretty damn low standards for the drivers they allow on their service. Which is why I personally wouldn't feel any safer with a woman Uber than a Man Uber. They aren't enforcing standards that ensure a high quality of driver here, period. That is the real problem. You could lull yourself into a false sense of security by being a woman and selecting a woman driver... but if most of the driver's are men, and their company standards aren't high... why would you think you're getting the best quality women either?

I'm sure people have had troubles with taxi drivers and maybe bus drivers too... and most of those were men... but I don't ever remember a movement by women to only ride on busses driven by women and with women passengers or ride in taxis driven by women only... IF this is seriously a real fear, I wouldn't touch an Uber with a ten foot pole regardless of who was driving based on what I'm hearing. I wouldn't trust the company to give a shit and really screen their drivers or protect the customers.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

Who gives a shit if a few dudes online aren't happy about it. Again, I don't get the point of this even being a thread

Well , I kind of do care a bit?

Also, I'll try to make better threads next time or type it out on an already existing spam thread; I'm joking, I frankly don't give a shit if these are well received or not, I just make 'em because that's what I am thinking about in the moment.

If you feel like they are redundant, aggressive, made to stir up anger in people (not my intention), you can ignore me (since I'm going to be making more at some point, that's just how I am) or you can ask a mod to determine if these threads are fit to exist or if they are pointless chatter/could devolve into bad threads and have the thread locked for being out of place for the kind of forum we are in. I don't mind.

I just made the thread because I thought it was actually a good thing that is happening and might have made some people happy knowing measures are being take for the world to be a little less shitty; I do know that suicide and dark thoughts are not the same experience for everyone but for some people small victories like this might help.

As for the other thread and your response (I don't want to make 50 replies); I already said, I don't have my browser history anymore (I clear it weekly) and I don't have the memory of a super computer, in fact my memory is quite bad. So I used pretty sure because I wasn't completely sure; so sorry about that, I'll just refrain from talking about these things unless I can get the source directly to give actual examples examples.

 

[GhostInTheMachine]

Who gives a shit if a few dudes online aren't happy about it. Again, I don't get the point of this even being a thread

Well to be fair, it's nice to know that this is even a feature. I don't keep up with marketing, and have required uber at times because public transportation isn't always available. I probably wouldn't qualify for the service on account of being non-passing trans, but any women who would need this in a pinch might be in a similar situation where they only hear about this via word of mouth.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

I feel like we're dancing around the real problem here. It's not that men are inherently horrible and should be feared... it's that Uber and Lyft andthese companies have pretty damn low standards for the drivers they allow on their service. Which is why I personally wouldn't feel any safer with a woman Uber than a Man Uber. They aren't enforcing standards that ensure a high quality of driver here, period. That is the real problem. You could lull yourself into a false sense of security by being a woman and selecting a woman driver... but if most of the driver's are men, and their company standards aren't high... why would you think you're getting the best quality women either?

I'm sure people have had troubles with taxi drivers and maybe bus drivers too... and most of those were men... but I don't ever remember a movement by women to only ride on busses driven by women and with women passengers or ride in taxis driven by women only... IF this is seriously a real fear, I wouldn't touch an Uber with a ten foot pole regardless of who was driving based on what I'm hearing. I wouldn't trust the company to give a shit and really screen their drivers or protect the customers.

Yes, I agree , the unfortunate reality is that public transport in many places doesn't cover that big of an area. Infrastructure is important because the lack of it encourages Uber and the other companies to flourish where public transport is lacking thus making people that have no car dependent on them to get to specific areas of the city. It's also different when getting in a bus with multiple people and getting in a car with a single person even if I did give examples (and there are more) of bad things happening there.

The thing is these women also get targeted because they are specifically women. I have people in my life who do this unfortunately on a daily basis; most people aren't really angels or should I say normal and understanding since it doesn't cost anything to be that way and it's not a requirement to be one to get into most jobs. I've met quite the venomous snakes in my life; They are nice to you and hell for your peers.

I used Uber a couple of times and met good people too however if you can get around without it I'd recommend it, walking is not a bad thing.
In fact I re-did the visit to the dentist a month later for another tooth and walked about 16km that day , it was nice outside and I didn't sweat at all, so it was a good experience but when you need to be there first thing in the morning, it's harder. The second time I needed to be there at 3pm , I was the last person to greet the cabinet and by 7pm I got back, I also went sight seeing a bit.