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.
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.
Fuck uber / lyft / skip / dash anyways.
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.
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.
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 would 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 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+
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
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
You’d prefer that women are assaulted or harassed first?
Quite the opposite.
How else do you think women would be identifying creeps in your scenario?
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.
Well said, complete and concise.
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 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I get it, but it’s sad that society have come to 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.give men the option to ride with men as well, and nobody will have an issue with this
These fucking comments. Anytime anything is done to make women safer men get up in arms and upset. “What about me?” cries the incel.
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!
can males avoid women drivers or is that considered sexist? what if a male wants to mitigate the chance of being falsely accused of assault/rape? I hope people have the choice regardless of gender
It might be considered sexist, depending on who you ask.
The amount of males being falsely accused of sexual assault is much lower than the amount of females being exposed to sexual assault. Hence why there has been provided a measure for women at this scale, and not for men.
As a penis haver who has been falsely accused of sexual assault, it’s far more common than you think.
I’m sorry that you had to go through that, and I must emphasize that I do not wish to “let” anyone be exposed to this. However, I remain unconvinced that it’s “more common than I think”. The amount of sexual assault that women are exposed to is unfortunately far, far more common, and a bigger problem that should take precedence in being dealt with.
So how does fucking men out of that option help women? It’s not a zero-sum game. You must have a certain ulterior motive, the subtext is that you want innocent men to be accused of rape to take revenge for the innocent women who were raped.
Not hard to read that sort of thing, and I don’t care how many downvotes or anger this will provoke, I know you self-righteous folk, I know the truth.
It’s not zero sum, but I agree that it’s going to negatively impact others.
The amount of males being falsely accused of sexual assault is much lower than the amount of females being exposed to sexual assault.
And you know this because… vibes?
Don’t take my word for it; look it up. But here, I’ll save you some time by spending my own:
https://worldmetrics.org/false-rape-allegations-statistics/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191137/reported-forcible-rape-cases-in-the-usa-since-1990/
https://www.cdc.gov/nisvs/media/pdfs/sexualviolence-brief.pdf
Say out of 140 000 reports of rape in one year, 4% are false. That leaves us with 5600 false accusations. And according to the survey shown by CDC, there’s an estimated 1.4 million women raped in 12 months.
But the fear of sexual assault is why women prefer women, so ain’t the fear of accusations a justifiable reason? Why does it have to be equal to matter?
Here: https://www.cdc.gov/nisvs/media/pdfs/sexualviolence-brief.pdf
Men have so much less reason to fear compared to women. This is not saying they have nothing to fear, but the measures taken by uber is an attempt to protect those who are MUCH more prone to sexual assault and harassment.
The fear of accusations is not covered in this survey, nevertheless, if men feel fearful of accusations, imagine what women feel when they fear actually being sexually assaulted.
Men have so much less reason to fear compared to women.
I do not agree this can be assumed.
deleted by creator
I never understood this fear.
Always seems weird when people are more worried about accusations than sexual assault/harassement. The latter seems far more common ime, even if you are seen as a guy.
I think it’s a perspective thing.
Men are less likely to perceive themselves as potential SA victims (regardless of actual numbers): so the relative subjective “chance” of false accusations against them vs being victims themselves impacts their priorities.
I’ve been sexually assaulted multiple times over my life, all by women. I did not conceive of the actions as assault until I heard women’s claims, of the same actions, be accepted as a form of sexual assault. Men absolutely under report their sexual assault, especially as the definition continues to be expand, including more behaviors that men have already dismissed.
Why? Most people, most of the time, focus on the perceived threats to themselves. Men, some subgroup of men in particular, are at a higher risk of false accusations than of sexual assault. What is seen as a danger to them is likely what they’ll focus on. And that’s a very reasonable and fair thing to do. Is that not exactly what women do when they focus on the risk of sexual assault and not on the risk of false accusations?
Both are legitimate fears. Both make sense. Both should be respected but only one actually is, across society.
Men, some subgroup of men in particular, are at a higher risk of false accusations than of sexual assault.
Are they? The former seems pretty much unheard of while the latter ain’t uncommon. I think the only subgroup of men where the risk of being “falsely” accused of SA is high are men who commit SA and just don’t believe it is SA. Of course perception of risk can vary and the (perceived) severity of the event matters as well.
So, if women can have the option not to ride with men, which is no problem. Then why can’t men have the option too?lWhat harm does it do to women if men can have the option as well?
There is no good way for me to interpret this, it must be an ulterior motive in there.
Either 1: the person saying that is a misandrist that, although they did have negative experiences with men, this does not justify their contemptfull attitude towards men, which they cover up under the excuse of protecting women.
2: They actually believe their gender should be have advantages. That just because they were born a certain gender, that gender should have advantages. Like, finding excuses for why the other gender deserves less.
3: They are afraid that giving men an equal option will make them seem like an Incel that is trying to make it seem like men are equally vulnerable for propaganda reasons, so they are afraid to choose the just and equal option, just because they are afraid of backlash. So men get dicked over for little good reason, because westerners see everything as zero-sum.
Username checks out or you are replying to the wrong person?
Beats me, that was yesterday, and I already lost interest in the topic.
I have never been afraid of being falsely accused of assault or rape because I have never done anything even close to anything that can be defined as assault or rape, or shown any behavior or tendencies to do so.
I think you’re missing the basic definition of what a false accusation is, here. The whole point of it is that you didn’t do the thing that you’re being accused of.
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Yeah that’s pretty ignorant of them. It might reduce the risk, because the circumstances make it harder to convincingly lie about, but it doesn’t ensure anything. One circumstance of uncertainty and a skilled and motivated individual is all it takes.
You ever tried taking a little girl to the park when you identified as a man?
It gets really weird when complete strangers go up to her and ask her if she knows you.
They don’t do that when you present as a woman.
I have had this happen on reverse
I when I go boymode, with my mom at some place like shopping mall, I got weird looks because people thought we were a couple
This has never happened to me, and I take my daughter, and her friends to the park all the time…
And I’ve hung out with plenty of men and they’ve never sexually assaulted me…
Yeah? So what?
Just because one person doesn’t experience something doesn’t invalid that others do, even when a majority do.
OP asked ‘has this ever happened to you?’ . I replied with my experience. Third poster replied with random non relevant experience of something not happening. I reply ‘so what?’. You feel the need to validate third poster…profit???
As a domestic abuser survivor (of a woman), a lot of us men are just not taken seriously. It is a lot like how people diminish one person’s pain/suffering just because it “isn’t as bad” as someone else’s pain. Men are absolutely abused, raped, and falsely accused. But because it happens to women more, we have to bear our suffering in silence.
No one is saying that men cannot be victims of harassment or assault.
However it is objectively true that women deal with this problem in much higher quantities than men do.
However it is objectively true that women deal with this problem in much higher quantities than men do.
How do you know that it is objectively true, if you also know these statistics are based around a culture that discourages men from reporting this problem?
And that’s why there should be a “no foreigners or blacks”-option.
Per RAINN, 57% of perpetrators are white. I’ll charitably imagine you’re attempting to point out perceived hypocrisy in gender vs race selection, but you’re perpetuating racist and xenophobic stereotypes. White men commit rape at more than twice the rate of black men, and naturally born citizens commit crimes at rates higher than both documented and undocumented immigrants.
If you want to make the case that it’s a discriminatory policy, you’re welcome to do so, but tying it to false perceptions of race is probably not the best move. It’s coming off as reactionary at best.
The actual argument is that it’s acceptable to discriminate against people of color because data shows they are considerably more violent than whites.
The same thing applies to discriminating against men because data shows they are considerably more violent than women.
Sexism and racism are okay if you have the data to back it up. Unless… this is a double standard and we’re allowing discrimination based on sex but not discrimination based on race?
The amount of falsely accused is less than 5% of all the rape cases.
So a women getting actually raped is about 20 times more likely than a man being falsely accused of rape.
And that is only counting all the instances where the rape got reported.
The amount of falsely accused is less than 5% of all the rape cases.
LOL how could you possibly know that?
So a women getting actually raped is about 20 times more likely than a man being falsely accused of rape.
Not sure what you’re getting at here. Do you think this is some sort of competition for who is the biggest victim? And only the victor should be granted “equality”?
people just… don’t get it. I’m shocked everytime I mention equality, and get met with the above nonsense. lol
I will never understand people’s thought processes. if I said no women should have this, sure… but I’m asking for everyone to have the same right, like… what?
Forget it, humans are a lost cause. They should be allowed to go extinct.
I downvoted you because it’s always a certain type of person to go on about men being “fAlSeLy AcCusEd of Rape.”
do men get falsely accused of rape? are you denying this happens?
oh wait, nevermind. I don’t care for your sexist views. get lost
LOL of course not. Equality for me, not for thee.
This is the shit that makes men look bad.
Men absolutely do not experience sexual harassment at the same level that women do.
It’s not close at all.
Why can’t we just let the women have a dub without being all “buhhh what about da men???”
And women don’t experience accusations of sexual harrassment at the same level that men do.
Men also experience plain physical assault at ~5x the rate of women.
Why can’t we just support equality for everyone? Why is that so hard?
As much as you want to try to paint men as the victims, they’re just not.
Yes, it happens. No it does not happen nearly as frequently.
This issue is extremely skewed toward women.
People of all types are victims of various stereotypes.
What does this even mean lmao
I just don’t see this need to want to be a victim.
It’s not that complicated roflcopter. I don’t know how to break it down any further.
Why would you think anyone wants to be a victim?
Why can’t we just support equality for everyone? Why is that so hard?
At least part of it is because of people like you who get upset whenever someone challenges the grossly inequitous status quo.
You’re the one advocating for inequality.
Things aren’t equal now. You don’t want that to change.
that’s literally why I bought up the topic of equality… and you’re resisting it because… actually there is no reason to resist equality.
“Equality” is not a totalitarian concept. Different people can be equal in some areas and unequal in others. Not sure why this is so hard to grasp.
Are you an “All Lives Matter” clown? It sure reads that way.
are you trying to say being accused of sexual assault is the same as being sexually assaulted lmao
No. I did not, and am not roflcopter
That’s it, I’ve had it. Somebody get Joe Rogan in here so we can hash this out.
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.”
“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.
Suddenly the concern trolls love pretending like they care about their local ride-sharing economy because a few women will be more selective sometimes.
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!
As a man, this makes me sad. As a man, I also understand.
Thank you
I get it, but it’s discrimination and someone is going to sue them for it.
ugh… americans and their endless lawuits
It’s true, but we’re such assholes that we need lawsuits to keep us from devolving into apes.
Lawsuits are the only language that can reach a corporation.
It’s not. You as an employee or contractor aren’t entitled to a particular client being assigned to you against that clients wishes. Customers are allowed to pick their contractor
It is. There’s already cases pending in California challenging it. It violates both Unruh Civil Right and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. If male drivers are getting less customers because they are male, and those customers are instead being sent to female drivers; explain like I’m 5 how that’s not blatant discrimination based on gender?
I don’t think it’s technically discrimination. Uber is a middle man business which pairs independent contractors with paying customers. If the customers or contractors have a preference then all it’s doing are matching those preferences.
More likely than not this will actually lead to those who use this option to have substandard service (either slower response or less available rides) than those who do not.
So MAGA racists with a preference for a white driver… that’s totally ok, right?
I mean, as a company whose business is pairing riders with drivers, it begs the question why this isn’t already an option so long as drivers can also choose not to drive for people flagged as a certain way. If a MAGA person only wants white people driving for them then that will reduce the effectiveness of the app for them, provides service for someone who otherwise would be difficult as a customer, and it prevents them from harassing or bothering potential victims.
If I want to, as a driver or rider, I think I should be able to choose not to be driven or ride with someone who has been flagged by others as overly visible. That might mean someone who won’t shut up about MAGA while I or they drive, it might be someone who has 15 bumper stickers about their beliefs, or it might be someone who has their car wrapped with Hatsune Miku. The consequence of this decision might mean that I have to wait an extra 15 min for a ride or it might mean that because of my actions people no longer wish to ride with me.
Yes, I think that’s a good idea.
So you disagree with the Civil Rights Act then? Because one of the things it did was force businesses to serve customers, regardless of things like race or sex. And before we had it, there where large parts of the South where black people would be refused service, and if someone did serve them, they’d lose a bunch of white customers.
That’s the very good reason why it’s “not already an option.”
Neither drivers nor Uber have the right, or should have the right, to refuse service based on categories protected in the Civil Rights Act.
But that’s not how Uber works, Uber pairs drivers with riders and has no guarantee for service even now. If I open my app and there are not drivers available then no service will be provided, this isn’t Uber discriminating.
Uber doesn’t care what your race, gender, or political leaning is, they want to provide you the service you want. So long as the option goes both ways this only hurts the people who opt into the program, not everyone else. The only way this could hurt others would be if those who choose to opt in (as in they only want a certain thing) get priority in the scheduling or if you live somewhere where you are the overwhelming minority.
In the first example, if you say you only want female riders so the system sends you every woman that comes into the system instead of putting you in the same queue as everyone else but skipping you if the next client doesn’t match your preference. In this case you are being skipped in the allocation of riders and actually missing opportunities due to your preference.
In the second example, if you are still living in a sun down town then getting Uber rides is probably not your biggest problem.
Even now, Uber drivers are independent contractors and can cancel service whenever they want. If the driver pulls up and thinks you’re sketchy they can cancel the ride, there is no obligation.
So long as the option goes both ways this only hurts the people who opt into the program, not everyone else. The only way this could hurt others would be if those who choose to opt in (as in they only want a certain thing) get priority in the scheduling or if you live somewhere where you are the overwhelming minority.
So the only way it could hurt anyone is if they’re a minority. Yes, that’s exactly why we have the Civil Rights Act and why what you’re suggesting is illegal.
In the second example, if you are still living in a sun down town then getting Uber rides is probably not your biggest problem.
Next you’re going to tell me that black people in racist towns should just eat at home if restaurants don’t want to serve them. And if the bus driver makes you sit at the back of the bus, just drive a car.
Even now, Uber drivers are independent contractors
This is a bullshit legal category that exists primarily to exploit loopholes, but even that does not give anyone the right to discriminate and violate the Civil Rights Act.
If the driver pulls up and thinks you’re sketchy they can cancel the ride, there is no obligation.
Strictly speaking, if a driver cancelled every ride that a black person booked, they could be sued for it, although such a suit would be very difficult in practice because you’d have to have enough records of that driver (or the company, if that was the target of the suit) to show a consistent bias.
This is the case in every business. Denial of service based on protected classes is illegal.
The difference in what I am saying and what you are saying is scale and you are completely ignoring the rest of my argument. The scale at which you would have to be a minority for this to impact you significantly is somewhere in the 1-5% range (as in your minority is only this percentage of the local population) with the assumption that the other 95-99% are opposed to you. This is why Uber providing this as an option is different from the cases which the Civil Rights Act was based around. Hell, this is why scabs are effective against unions as well.
A diner not serving black people is impactful because a handful of people are the business owners and are effectively gating you out. Uber allowing those people to select only a specific preference means that anyone who doesn’t set restrictions will break that system and actually benefit from it (more business).
This also goes both ways and is potentially international, Japanese could choose not to serve non-Japanese, a black person could choose not to serve white people for comfort or security.
You’re fundamentally not understanding why Uber allowing people to make this decision is not the same as 1960’s segregation.
Uber doesn’t care what your race, gender, or political leaning is
Yes, they specifically do. They need to know the riders’ genders in order for pairing to work.
You’re being pedantic, they don’t care as it pertains to whether they will provide you with service. They do care so that they can match yours and other people’s requests.
“I’m entitled to make women who are victims of sexual assault remarkably uncomfortable and fearing for their safety! I demand compensation!”
“I only want white drivers” - some racist.
It’s the same fucking thing.
In this case the effect is so serious that you don’t really have a good option. It would be like if specifically Asian people were joining Uber trying to sexually assault men, I would probably do something to allow men to avoid Asians. It’s absolutely racist but at least I’m massively reducing the sexual assaults. The reason this doesn’t apply to race as much is almost every time something was blamed on race it was just a lie or completely misrepresented.
I understand the problem is real.
Discrimination is discrimination though.
Well in that case would you also be against affirmative action? I would also say that’s racist, but I also want the perspectives of other ethnicities, who likely grew up differently, when decisions are made. I think discrimination is sometimes just a necessary evil.
I’m in favor of affirmative action because it attempts to correct discrimination. It’s not racist; it is racial. Affirmative action acknowledges that discrimination has existed and takes measures to attempt to prevent it.
I also think there’s a lot of people on here thinking that I’m mad about the Uber decision. I could not give a shit less about it because I refuse to use Uber. I’m just calling a spade a spade.
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unless you’ve actually literally lived as a woman you cannot know the monumental amount of sexual harassment we face and fear on a day-to-day basis. doubly so for trans women. every single moment i am alone in public i am deathly anxious that i could be harassed (sexually or otherwise) or hate-crimed or whatever. and the worst part is, there’s nothing i could do about it. the perpetrator would get away scot-free. the cops do not fucking care
however bad you think it is, it’s worse. whatever you’re imagining, it is exponentially more horrendous
I have twice been in public with my fiance and some random twat in a pickup truck yells cat calls while driving by slowly in a parking lot. Wish the fuckers would stop so I can pull them through the window. God knows what she’s delt with when I’m NOT standing next to her holding her hand. Sick as a society we are, that’s why we have trump as pedophile in cheif. Smh.
This is the thing as a former white man.
Authority to touch others flows down the privilege hierarchy.
Trans women are always judged as the aggressor, always. Our bodies are considered public property.
I faced some as a man, so…yeah. Most of my trouble is from other men, and my attitude towards dating (not wanting to) is from trust issues that were actually caused by other men treating me awfully, so I don’t want to let ANY human treat me the same way.
It depends where you live really. It’s a problem in the US indeed but for instance in many countries in Europe they don’t sexually harass their females on a “day-to-day basis”
As a man, I genuinely wonder how much actual harassment women face vs how much they hear about it, driving the anxiety.
I get to feel that a lot of these fears are real, but many are manufactured. But I can be wrong.
I have yet to meet a woman I’m close enough friends with who doesn’t have a personal sexual assault story. Not a harrassment story, an SA story. Could just be bad luck but i don’t think it is. It also lines right up with the statistic
that 3/4 women get sexually assaulted before 30(that stat is from memory, but I’ll try and track it down in a bit.)I believe It is much worse than you think.
EDIT: so on the stat I popped: NSVRC says 1 in 5 women in their lifetimes and RAINN says 1 in 6 in their lifetime. It’s been a while since i’d read that stat so it makes sense it’d be off.(though it is disappointing just how far off it ended up being, big whiff on my part) Those stat pages also have numbers for men as well
The 1 in 6 stat from RAINN are for attempted rape and rape, not sexual harassment or assault. Those numbers are even higher. That’s why there’s a difference between what you remember.
Anecdotally, last week I (middle aged lady) was approached by two strange men. One tried to grab me outside my work site, and one told me how lovely I was and asked for my number (in target). It’s much, much worse for young women. It’s not manufactured, unlike the doubt of women’s lived experience seems to be.
I’m pretty sure it’s much, much worse than you think. In fact, I’m fairly sure it’s much worse than I think. Men don’t experience it, women are reluctant to talk about it because some men react aggressively to claims that men react aggressively.
i didn’t speak in detail about the very many numerous times i’ve been sexually harassed in public only because it’s too depressing to think about lmao
1 in 6 women in the US have experienced either an attempt or complete rape.
https://rainn.org/get-informed/facts-statistics-the-scope-of-the-problem/
That’s not even touching on sexual harassment or assault.
I get your point, but if you actually go out and speak with women who trust you, chances are they will all have multiple stories of harassment and/or SA that will make your skin crawl. It’s not just fearmongering, there are a lot of awful men out there (in absolute terms)
I’m surprised how many (well-meaning) men are clueless about this horrible aspect of life which is so universal for women.
If men can never know. How can men ever trust women’s calls to action on the issues are fair, just or worthwhile?
Your retort is that because you lack empathy women are somehow suspect?
It is because I have empathy for both women and men. It also means those who don’t understand ,or get offended, may lack the empathy for both needed to understand the point made. Do you empathize with men’s experience of women?
The same way we trust that it’s really painful for men to get kicked in the junk without having to experience it ourselves.
And how do we accomplish that?
If I knew how to make everyone empathetic we wouldn’t even need to be discussing this in the first place. What a vapid question.
Sounds like it an incredibly important question if you want more empathy in the world.
The question of how we make empathy universal isn’t the vapid question. Yours that I was responding to was.
Either way, if women can manage the hit in the balls empathy, surely you can figure this out, too, without a step-by-step pictorial diagram and someone to hold your hand.
You can’t explain how empathy works and think understanding it is vapid so your beleifs about what is and isn’t possible, how and when, seem highly suspect. How do you know men and women are equally capable of how empathy, or if what is required to encourage it, is present?
You answered your own question. The task for men is to trust women when they describe their experiences, even if it’s completely invisible and alien to their own experiences. Reading detailed firsthand accounts is a good way to build understanding.
That is not a task for men. That is a demand from women. If men can only decide to believe based on the trust they have with the speaker then the speaker must earn their trust. It is not men’s responsibility to become trusting of women, just because women want it. If women want men to trust their words then it’s women’s responsibility to gain men’s trust. It would be profoundly unwise of men to believe without either trust or safety. How often do you ever concern yourself with the safety of men? Because from my experiences, those of my male friends and of the media women like most, women ensuring men feel safe enough to trust is not a concept that rarely ever appears, nevermind it being respected when it does.
I think we all need to do the work to understand the problems faced by different groups. Women need to be doing this too. This isn’t a thread about problems men face, however.
Few of them ever are…which is an example of the point. Stories of men’s experiences are not wanted. So when the topics affecting men are brought up, it’s the closest many get to being heard. Which, of course, they get attacked for. It’s not the place but there is no place so it never gets heard. Seems to me like a little system of censorship and oppression.
This is kind of an insane take.
Women have always been vulnerable. Women are easy targets because they are, on average, physically weaker than males.
Women get raped and sexually assaulted at rates far beyond men. 50% of women will suffer a sexual assault of some kind in their life. Just 3% of men report a sexual assault.
What’s so insane about it?
I agree that women have and will likely continue to be, physically vulnerable to larger people, most often from those whom are men, because they more often bigger. Women suffer from this vulnerability in a variety of ways, including sexual assault. That risk, and the severity of the consequences, deserves community effort to mitigate.
Where’s the insane part?
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…
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.
When you request a car you can add a message to the driver saying something like ‘passenger is deaf/dead’.
That works sometimes.
“Don’t make eye contact.”
Here in Europe we already have that, at least for comfort and above.
I’m imagining how awful it would be for a German to get into an Uber with an average chatty American driver.
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.
