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.
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.As a man, this makes me sad. As a man, I also understand.
Thank you
I get it, but it’s sad that society have come to this.
give men the option to ride with men as well, and nobody will have an issue with this
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.
Since you said they’re a she, it’s fiancée. Congrats on the nups!
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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”
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.
That may be the case, GiantChickDicks, but I would really appreciate said step-by-step pictorial diagram. Hand holding optional.
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?
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These fucking comments. Anytime anything is done to make women safer men get up in arms and upset. “What about me?” cries the incel.
Men being triggered by this is so cringe. Ew.
The sad reality is that women have to worry about being attacked… Not all men are creepy but men need to also hold the shitty men accountable too. The “would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a random man” question broke the internet because it was a strong argument and made a lot of men think about who even they feel comfortable with if alone in the woods… Most men said the bear, too… Idk many men who are deathly afraid of women and this isnt me saying that men havent been raped, abused, attacked. No human should have to experience ANY intimate violence. The risks are just less statistically. Its not weird to try and mitigate violence on any app…
I don’t 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.
As a man I also want to select a female driver only. Seriously here in the Netherlands if you get a male driver good chance it’s some agro 20 year old high on NOx who also hates queers. I’m not even queer but I don’t want my money going to cunts like that.
Awesome, but they should also give men the option to choose to ride with a man.
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.
I get it, but it’s discrimination and someone is going to sue them for it.
I don’t get why they don’t just make this a global option. Anyone can choose their preferred gender. Some women prefer women, some prefer men. Hell, some men prefer men.
Came here expecting misogyny-adjacent comments.
…It met my expectations :/
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!
