And who exactly will pay the difference? The state? Maybe the governments of NY/Cali/Washington can put in taxpayer money to make up for the difference. I wonder how well that will go with the voters.
It seems to me like this would also be illegal. You are giving one gender an option you aren't giving the other gender. And you are making it so one gender has more potential customers than the other, which is effectively giving them more money.
But whether the law is enforced is a whole other question.
> You are giving one gender an option you aren't giving the other gender.
A simple solution then is to make the feature a `custom request for the same sex driver/passenger`. Then males can request males and females can request females. Or they (driver/passenger) can simply use it as
The more of this kind of natural discrimination we make illegal the less meaningful public markets will be and the more people will choose to:
1) Just not socialize
2) Do things under the table.
Let people pay the premium for what they want. Sometimes there are good reasons for it. Stop pretending to have an apodictic understanding of both the world and morality.
It's not blatant - "a driver not threatening to women" is not a job both genders can do. It's very easy to delineate. We have hundreds of jobs like that already that are quite mundane and legal, like worker at Victoria's Secret.
> "a driver not threatening to women" is not a job both genders can do.
Imagine if I were to make an analogous claim with races rather than genders. You wouldn't even care whether there were any kind of statistical basis for the claim (I am explicitly not claiming any statistical basis for any claim of that form). You would immediately and correctly deem the claim to be racist.
Feeling threatened by the mere existence of another person, on the basis of that person's sex, race or anything else is not generally considered a rational or socially acceptable response. It's the sort of thing that results either from past life trauma or from explicit bigotry.
I imagine there also will be sex discrimination lawsuits. It just isn't legal to make decisions while employed based on whether or not you're a woman or likely as a customer as well.
> It just isn't legal to make decisions while employed based on whether or not you're a woman
It is legal as a customer, and as an employee. It’s not as an employer or a business offering a public accommodation in general, but even there there are some exceptions; whether this situation falls into them seems likely to get litigated.
I am pretty sure that, for example, an American employee at a fast-food place working alone late at night would not be allowed to discriminate against customers in this manner.
And it'll apply to the employer here, Uber, just as soon as they start preferentially hiring female gender drivers because of the imbalanced demand (for specific gender drivers) created by this discriminatory policy.
Uber is generally not legally the employer of drivers, and state and federal employment non-discrimination law generally applies only to actual employment, not independent contracting.
California had a court decision which would have done that generally, so they sponsored a ballot measure that excepted them, in exchange for other regulations. I'm not aware of any US jurisdictions where they haven't managed to avoid employer designation as a general rule.
But I know there are some wrinkles like workers comp disputes where individual drivers were found to be employees for workers comp purposes.
> There are clearly carveouts for this that are not views as discrimination by the vast majority of people.
Anytime you decide between options on a particular basis you are discriminating on that basis, that's what the word means.
Whether it is unacceptable (a moral judgement) or illegal (a legal judgement) discrimination are separate questions, but it absolutely and unquestionably is discrimination.
It is if it's a "bona fide job requirement", which it possibly could be. To take an extreme case, TSA agents only screen passengers of the same gender, so it'd be fair game to discriminate based on gender if for whatever reason the staffing ratios aren't balanced.
For Uber women have the choice to request a driver or passenger of the same gender, but men don't. For TSA, the same gender rule applies to both genders.
I really doubt it's as simple as “just not legal”; most anti-discrimination laws allow for reasonable exceptions, especially when women's safety is at stake.
There may still be lawsuits, but it's not obvious that Uber would lose.
It's not even clear that men are at all disadvantaged by current proposal, given that the preference isn't guaranteed to be honored, so female drivers most likely will still be expected to pick up male passengers. In that case, there is essentially no scenario where a man is refused service because of his sex, and it seems questionable whether there is any grounds for legal action at all.
For starters, the option doesn't appear to be available for men. Male drivers in particular may want to skip female passengers for fear of baseless allegations/lawsuits.
Second, if my personal experience with Uber is typical, there aren't anywhere near enough female drivers available to serve female customers. In order to make this system work, female passengers will either need to wait much longer (for an available female driver) OR Uber will have to increase wages for female drivers (to entice more drivers). That second option is likely illegal - generally speaking, we can't determine wages strictly on gender.
I don't necessarily have a problem with the notion of females selecting female drivers/customers, but I do have concerns about rolling out an actual real-life feature in a legal and fair/equitable manner.
So they will wait longer. I expect the market being market-y, women drivers will hear about it and enroll more to drive Uber. Still long wait for female waiting for female drivers, probably. Yet all this magic working without subsidies.
Random woman waiting longer is going to entice more female drivers at the existing wage? That doesn't seem likely to me. If Uber wants/needs more female drivers, they're going to need some sort of proactive enticement. But, as I said, wage discrimination isn't legal (probably). And general "DEI" programs are political targets right now (though, IMO, probably the best answer to find more female drivers).
I personally would like to be able to choose specifically for a male driver. I trust them more.
I'm being facetious of course, but it does highlight how bad sex discrimination is.
The problem with sex discrimination here is that it is a very crude workaround for a fundamental problem, namely not being safe with some Uber drivers. I'd like to point out at this point that as a dude (especially a scrawny one) you can also get murdered or (sexually) harassed by an Uber driver (male or female). This workaround does nothing for those cases. The fundamental problem will probably simply be properly solved with driverless taxis.
"discrimination is bad except when I like the results"
People who were historically against discrimination are well in to embracing it and don't see the problem at all. Why do we need to accept your preferred set of discriminations and not somebody else's?
Starting with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and some follow up classes, certain set of discriminationa were enshrined in federal and state law as being protected, so that's why.
No one, or at least no significant faction, has ever historically ever been against discrimination. Discrimination is making decisions.
People have been against making certain decisions on specific bases, limiting the acceptable conditions in which discrimiantion on particular bases is permissible, but literally no one has ever been against all discrimination on bases for which they sought limitations.
The change you perceive is entirely a result of you misunderstanding and oversimplifying to the point of utter nonsense the original position.
The common understanding (disregarding ideologues) of "discrimination" is still not a pedantic dictionary definition (which applies broadly to situations that don't even involve human interaction) is as given on Wikipedia (they do sometimes get politically charged ideas correct):
> Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong,[1] such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sexual orientation.[2] Discrimination typically leads to groups being unfairly treated on the basis of perceived statuses based on ethnic, racial, gender or religious categories.[2][3] It involves depriving members of one group of opportunities or privileges that are available to members of another group.[4]
The point is that we are interested in the cases deemed unfair.
The problem is that people have wildly different ideas of what is fair.
Just let people do what they want. If they want to pay premia for free association let them and if you think they're abusing it, hey that's arbitrage (ie free money) for you to take from them.
The more you worry about that and force people to do things they don't want to the more everyone pulls away from public socialization and the less there is for desperate people in general.
Are drivers required to provide sex assigned at birth? If not, we might see male drivers conveniently identifying as women to circumvent this (presumably to minimize wait times between rides). Although I guess they'd get canceled on a lot.
I think the attack vector is traditionally opportunistic. Horny driver suddenly has a vulnerable woman in his car and they're in a secluded area, boom there's an assault.
Any driver who is so premeditated about his assault plans that he would sign up to Uber pretending to be a woman probably has easier and more direct ways to access victims that are less likely to blow up in his face.
The premise here is not that men would "pretend to be women" (and sooner or later, a trans activist will decide that this charge has been levied at the wrong target) as part of a "premeditated assault plan".
The premise is that men would do it either in order to protest the policy, or in order to retain access to business that they had before.
My partner was sexually assaulted in a Lyft. Background checks only detect people who have been previously accused or convicted; they don't protect against people who haven't been caught yet.
At the core of it, a woman is getting into a vehicle with a stranger.
You mean the part of civilization that requires every single last person own and operate and have space to store their own 3,000 lb pedestrian mower, especially while intoxicated? No thanks!
I rarely use these services, so I don't know the facts, but multiple times I have heard a woman say she is afraid to give a bad rating or report because the driver picked her up at her home, so he might return. I assume drivers can't see who is reporting/rating, but the fear is that they can use basic logic to make an assumption about who it was.
First, I don't know why you're using the word "you". Second, if I was the person in question, why would you punish a woman for expressing a fear by verbally abusing her like this? Besides being a hideous thing to do, it also teaches her to not voice fears in the future.
Wouldn't the obvious talking point be the thing causing the fear, rather than insulting and belittling a person for being afraid?
>afraid that whatever Uber puts in place to anonymize your bad rating is insufficient?
This seems like a reasonable concern. Why are you framing it as an insult, as if you were trying to bully a person into trusting a company? Why would a person trust Uber/Lyft to be transparently secure and technically thorough about this detail? In other services, service-providers can and have used basic reasoning skills to identify clients who gave bad reviews.
>I suggest clicking help and reporting the driver directly
I don't understand - reporting suffers the same problem, as I mentioned in the comment you're replying to.
The pain of having an attractive wife or female partner. Some guys are so aggressive a-holes that more decent women end up shying away from men in general.
Imagine being hit easily 10-50x a day, every effin' day. Work, street, public transport, online, everywhere. Guys really think inviting pretty ladies 'for a coffee' aint something they heard 100x that week already.
Dated one such lady, the trauma and trust issues were real. Either they get spolied for attention or get traumatized. Everybody loses.
Discriminating against all men because some men are violent criminals is like discriminating against all black people because some black people are violent criminals.
One type of stereotyping and discrimination is socially acceptable. The other is not.
Classifying and disadvantaging a huge group of people because of the actions of a tiny fraction of that group is unjust.
It is my personal belief that neither type of discrimination should be acceptable.
I talked with a woman uber driver in Ann Arbor. She was telling me that she lives in Toledo but drives up to Ann Arbor/Romulus (DTW airport) because the customers are safer and overall nicer while in Toledo she made it sound like everyone's an asshole.
> How many frivilous assault allegations against male drivers are there? I've never heard of this happening personally.
It comes up from time to time if you watch Uber driver videos. There's a reason why many drivers have a camera that records the interior of the car: alcohol + entitlement can manifest in many ways.
Most commonly, passengers cancel the ride and expect to be driven to their destination anyways. But worse stuff happens from time to time.
Daily Mail is usually accurate. If you'd read the link you'd know they're just reporting on the contents of a viral video, and if you search the guy's name you can find reports from Mexican media.
Well, I rate fact checkers less reliable than the Daily Mail based on direct experience of checking both. And this particular story, as expected, has no obvious factual errors.
Well, it's hard to argue against your direct experience without any actual detail. But the paper has consistently been shown up as sensationalised and misleading when it comes to right-wing bugbears such as climate change, COVID, and immigration.
Me neither. I hear about assaults against female passengers but I don't believe I've read or heard about one against female drivers. I've asked a few women I've gotten in Ubers with and they say they've had some dicey situations but no out right assaults.
But I don't think you were asking genuinely and just wanted to be snarky without contributing to the conversation :)
His is the best response in this thread. The point is that whether you've personally heard of something or not is not a great indicator of anything.
To answer the original question, wherever there is any power imbalance, there will be abuse. Priests, teachers, parents vs children; boss vs employee; "vulnerable" females vs "aggressive" males. A man complains about assault by a woman, everyone laughs. A woman complains about assault by a man, he gets thrown in jail.
I'm curious how that would play out over time. Since it would be male drivers who have no intention of harassing/assaulting female passengers that take this option, would you get a "Dead Sea" effect of proportionally more predators being left in the "accepts riders of any sex" group? Over time this could create an incredibly sex-segregated service.
While I can kinda buy the argument for why men may want to do this, it is also complicated and how far do we go. (saying this as a guy for the record)
Is it that you are either free for all or you can limit to your own sex or a sex of your choice? So could men say they only want woman? What about trans people.
Do we start adding in religion, political affiliation, race, etc etc etc.
Woman not feeling safe with unknown (and largely unvetted) Male drivers (or passengers) is a valid concern. It feels more like a bandaid than an actual fix, but it is an "Easy" solution to a problem. The ideal should be that we don't need this, not that we add in more filters like this. But for many reasons we as a society are not there.
I think there is a very big difference between those when personal safety is considered.
It is the same as asking if you have a preference when you get a massage or go to the doctor since those are more intimate and likely involving a lack of clothes. Something that in those situations you would feel regardless of your gender. As a male I prefer a male doctor, especially when talking about certain topics. I realize logically this is stupid and they are a professional at the end of the day, but that is my reality.
Unlike those however, there is not really a valid reason for a man to say they don't want a female driver/passenger from a comfort or safety standpoint.
We can argue all day long about in an ideal world we would not need this, but that is not our reality.
> Unlike those however, there is not really a valid reason for a man to say they don't want a female driver/passenger from a comfort or safety standpoint.
There is no more valid reason for a woman to say she doesn't want a male driver than a white person to say they don't want a black driver.
Men, as a group, are not dangerous, and there is no reason to discriminate against them. The vast majority of human beings, men included, are nonviolent.
Which statistics? Are you talking about statistics linking poverty to crime? Or lead ingestion leading to aggressiveness? Or are you just being subtly racist?
> Woman not feeling safe with unknown (and largely unvetted) Male drivers (or passengers) is a valid concern. It feels more like a bandaid than an actual fix, but it is an "Easy" solution to a problem. The ideal should be that we don't need this, not that we add in more filters like this. But for many reasons we as a society are not there.
Instead of building trust and ensuring that all Uber drivers are trustworthy drivers - they add option to avoid "potentially" less trustworthy drivers. Latter option is cheaper.
sigh : Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.
Oh, I can assure you that there are many lawsuits filed for gender discrimination against men in workspaces, some of which are notable and made headlines. If lawsuits can happen, I don't see why it is a problem just want to discuss the topic here.
This should work in all directions. Male passengers should be able to request male drivers only. Male drivers can request male passengers to avoid any hassle of female passengers.
Also, lesbians can be just as predatory towards females.
>The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment.
IANAL, but I don't think this changes the legality of the discrimination against male independent contractors, because the riders are employing them.
My understanding is that women-only gyms typically operate as 501(c)7 nonprofit private clubs, which are allowed to discriminate. It would be effectively impossible to rework that structure into a ride-sharing app.
>, but I don't think this changes the legality of the discrimination against male independent contractors, because the riders are employing them.
Riders don't create a official "W-2 employee" relationship with a Uber driver as defined by the Internal Revenue Service. So the discrimination laws you're thinking of don't apply to riders.
It's the same legal status for Uber to offer a gender option just like the existing childcare platforms to find babysitters or medical provider directories to find doctors. Both the babysitter and doctor platforms are legally allowed to let customers filter on gender. Parents want to specify female-only for babysitters because they're afraid that males are more likely to be pedophiles.
>Reading up on "bona fide occupational qualification" and thought this might be helpful, as there is a Wikipedia page on it:
Yes, and notice that the page you cited refers back to the actual text of the Federal laws:
>In employment discrimination law in the United States, both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act contain a BFOQ defense.
Initially, the 2008 cut off for Ubers, and the related on site inspections led to high quality; but over time, I've been in more vehicles with check engine and other lights on -- and heard more failed shocks (and mounts) than I would like to ride in; though the suspension is more sketch in a cab.
That seems reasonable. If that's the case, I don't know how successful it will actually be for that purpose if anyone can choose for themselves to identify as female.
Part of what problem? The problem of expecting men and women to be treated fairly, according to the same rules, without special privileges for one or the other?
Because it's only discrimination if you're doing it against the oppressed gender? I don't think intent is to have that as a feature that someone actually uses, it's to show the absurdity of it if the roles are reversed.
I agree, reverse discrimination is not a thing, which is why it’s ridiculous when conservative politicians throw around the term as they dismantle various programs in schools and the workplace. I’m pointing it out and highlighting the absurdity of those assertions.
> I agree, reverse discrimination is not a thing, which is why it’s ridiculous when conservative politicians throw around the term
They don't throw that term around. They correctly call out discrimination that happens to go in an opposite direction from what you find politically convenient.
People in your camp invented, probably unknowingly, the "reverse" terminology, because your narrative requires the premise that "discrimination" can definitionally only negatively impact certain groups of people. Which is how and why you can defend the other instances as "not a thing", even when you are shown proof of them occurring — they just don't fit your redefined terms. It is the same logic as "you can't be sexist against men", used to deny the sexism inherent in even the clearest situations. The framing is itself sexist — as it supposes that men are an inferior group not worthy of the philosophical protection of the term, nor of recognition of real and obvious harm inflicted upon them because they are men. (I have even seen attempts to spin such harms as primarily affecting women.)
"Dismantling various programs" only has anything to do with discrimination where those programs are actually discriminatory. I have seen much dismantling of "programs" by conservatives that I strongly disagreed with, but not on those grounds.
Discrimination violates equality, rule of law, etc. If there is really a problem, the situation should be dealt with recording and policing, not with discrimination or turning the place into a place where being a victim is rewarded. Otherwise it's a slippery slope.
> Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong,[1] such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sexual orientation.[2] Discrimination typically leads to groups being unfairly treated on the basis of perceived statuses based on ethnic, racial, gender or religious categories.[2][3] It involves depriving members of one group of opportunities or privileges that are available to members of another group.[4]
If you make an unfair or prejudicial distinction between men and women, that is discrimination.
A policy such as this one makes the unfair, prejudicial claim that men are inherently a risk to women's safety, simply by existing in the same physical space for an ordinary business transaction.
Nobody is declaring "reverse discrimination" because the people you disagree with do not use this term. People with your position project it onto others.
It is absurd, because it is clearly discriminatory and people are trying to present it as not discriminatory. ("Reverse the genders" is a common rhetorical device here, but I have found that it's at least as effective to swap "men" and "black people".)
"Power dynamics" have nothing whatsoever to do with what is or is not discrimination. But there is no applicable "power dynamic" here anyway. There is no reason to suppose a priori that individual men have power over individual women in an arbitrary encounter. There is at most a sloppy, sexist application of statistics.
You know that some men have been sexually abused by women, yes? Is their trauma not valid?
When I was a child, I was taught that expecting men and women to receive equal protection of the law, and equal rights under the law, was a fundamental principle of feminism.
Now I am simultaneously told by some feminists that it is "tone-deaf", while other feminists insist to me that feminism is not about women receiving special privileges that men don't have.
The proposed policy is a special privilege being extended to women and not to men.
(And this is without even considering how transgender status intersects with the policy.)
I think the direction we should go in is not to separate genders, but unify them. For example, there shouldn't be separate bathrooms or parking spaces. The more you make the separation, the more divided a society becomes. Just look at many muslim socities like Arabic countries where almost everything is separated.
Now, I am a male, but many females, including my partner, actually advance this point of view. Also look at more equal socities like in Nordic countries, and you'll see that there's much less separation than in countries with more gender inequality.
Of course, we can argue cause and effect and what not, but I still stand by the opinion that separation also has an effect on gender equality, not only the other way round.
>I think the direction we should go in is not to separate genders, but unify them. For example, there shouldn't be separate bathrooms
This Uber gender option is about safety for women.
Some women are afraid of male Uber drivers stalking them and learning of their home address. To avoid that, they have to follow "best practice" hacks such as entering a decoy address of a nearby intersection for pickup and dropoff. This makes it more inconvenient but a little harder for Uber drivers to figure out exactly where they live.
Allowing for "female-only" drivers may help passengers avoid the cloak-and-dagger workarounds.
> This Uber gender segregation is about safety for women.
It's always about "safety for women". Or so they say. The argument for disallowing trans women in female bathrooms is also "safety for women". Complete bullshit. Similar argument with end-to-end encryption and safety for children.
However, often times these separations make society more unequal und unsafer for women.
It's a sad world if you think this to it's conclusion: Should females only ride with female taxi drivers? What about trains? Should we have separate train cars for females? Should we disallow females going out on the street alone without a male companion because they might get raped? It's about the safety for women, after all.
No, let's not start down this road. Are there men that harass and rape women? Of course! Will it happen a bit less if there's separation? Maybe. But it has many second-order effects that are not desirable.
Instead, as others have said, we need to think as a society why men are harassing women in the first place, and what we can attack this problem at the root.
You keep confusing "giving women the option to X" with "forcing women to X".
> It's always about "safety for women" ... Complete bullshit.
It's not bullshit. What underhand motivation do you think is at work here? Uber famously had a terrible track record on sexual assault (overwhelmingly by men against women), but through policies like this have gradually been working it down.
> Should we have separate train cars for females?
It's not a terrible idea. From talking to women, there is a lot of fear of getting on trains alone at night. If they felt safer about it then it could be a net positive both for public safety and the economy. It has actually been floated in UK politics recently: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/women-only-train-carr...
I am not saying Uber is doing this with some underhand motivation. Not blaming Uber here. My point is broader one. That the more separation (even if optional) we introduce, the worse its impact on gender equality. What we should do is try to tackle the root causes.
I don't work at Uber, so I don't know what they are doing. But what some things Uber could do, just off of the top of my head:
- Take complaints more seriously
- When selecting drivers, have a more rigourous selection procedure regarding this topic
What we as society can do? Many things, but let me list some that just spring to mind:
- Stop objectifying women in ads, movies, porn, popular culture and other places
- Stop treating nudity as some kind of crazy thing (of both genders, but again, double standards here because male topless nudity is not a big deal, but female is)
- Providing more suport for women who have been stalked or harassed or raped by men (ideally, so that we can pre-emptively stop those activities, not after it's too late)
- Education: Include gender education early on in school, mixed gender sports classes, mixed bathrooms, etc.
It's a great list. I believe Uber has improved on both of those items although could still do better (see e.g. [0]).
The issue with the second list is that it takes a long time to encourage that sort of social progress. It's extremely difficult to undo years of conditioning, so I think we have to wait it out until that generation ages out. In the meantime providing safety options for women in limited high-risk scenarios feels very jutifiable. And we continually reassess what those scenarios are so that we're allocating those measures in an efficient and moderated way.
This is one of those situations where it becomes abundantly clear whose dedication to abstract ethics overrides their acknowledgment of material reality and respect for others in terms of real-world safety.
I think that's a good goal and in general we should be deemphasizing our differences instead of strengthening them (not in the sense that everyone has to be the same but that how you are different shouldn't matter).
However there are some changes that need to happen and some major issues that need to be improved. Some of those include the reasons why women feel uncomfortable in Ubers. Incidents of very inappropriate comments are extraordinarily common much less the worse things which also happen.
> separation also has an effect on gender equality, not only the other way round
Possibly. I'd argue that it's good to give women the freedom to choose separation in specific scenarios where there's a relatively higher risk of sexual violence. Uber rides have historically proven to be such a scenario.
Men's use of urinals is quite efficient and timely. By un-separating bathrooms it would mean removing them as I see no other way around it and this would not benefit anyone. Unseparating the washing area is okay by me though again, men and women have different habits and comfort zones. I'd say the least disruptive option is to add gender neutral bathrooms.
No, you do not need to remove the urinals.
The standard way of solving this here in Norway. Is to put the urinals at the inner end of the bathrooms around a corner. So you can’t see in at them from where the stalls or the sinks are. Works like a charm.
Not to defend the other person's point of view (I don't have a horse in this race) but there are already open air urinals in festivals or even in Paris:
I know open air urinals used to exist in Amsterdam in my lifetime- I don't know if they still exist or not.
I'm pretty sure the idea was drunk men were going to urinate in public on the street no matter what the authorities did so they might as well be directed to a urinal.
In cities where no such facilities exist (public toilets of any kind), you better not walk in quiet alleys off the busy streets if you have a sensitive nose...
How exactly are they unsanity disasters? I would much rather use a urinal and never need to touch anything (besides myself, which unless I myself am unsanitary that should be clean) than need to either sit down and make contact with a surface a bunch of other people have made contact with or need to lift down and raise a lid to use that if I am standing.
Looking online I can't find anything about how they are any less sanitary than just a public bathroom is to begin with.
Unsightly, maybe, but I don't see how they're unsanitary. Urine is nearly sterile.
If you're standing up, it's also a lot easier to "hit the target" into a urinal vs. a toilet. Having a bunch of people peeing standing up into normal toilets would be a lot more gross than urinals.
I disagree. Sex segregation is the only way to ensure positive, safe, and inclusive women-only spaces that are free from patriarchal and toxic male influence. Any comparisons between this policy and puritanical religious societies are purely coincidental.
Education is the only way. Segregation or annihilation of one gender is a impractical idea that some european country did in the past and the outcome wasn't good in any way.
I think the qualifiers you use hint at are sourced from a puritanical religous belief itself for that matter. There are respective shelters for edge cases, but this should not be generalized towards most public spaces.
Safety and inclusion are often in conflict with each other. The feature being discussed, for example, is meant to improve safety for one group (women) by excluding another group (men). At the extreme end, we exclude convicted criminals from participating in society for the safety of others.
This is so typical. "As a man..." There are countless stories of women being harassed from uber drivers, lyft drivers, door dash delivery people, etc... This is the sad reality we live in. I'm glad the women in your life haven't experienced this or if they have they are able to manage it and not have it effect them. That is legit a great thing. However, to force the women who have trauma from this to experience it again seems cruel. I don't know what the word is for this, but it's a very common view online. It seems like a deliberate dismissal of reality in favor of some ideal world that doesn't exist.
Are you a female? Have you talked to females about this? I have, and what I wrote above is their point of view. I used to think like you before I had many conversations with women in my life about this very topic.
I'm sorry but that experience is still anectodal and doesn't invalidate whatsoever the negative experiences of others. Or you mean to say that just because you talked to females in your close proximity that the reality must be like that for everyone?
Of course it's anectodal. And no, I am not saying that reality is like this for everyone. I am saying that many men, who have not talked to women about these topics, have a false assumption. That there are many women who do not want separate bathrooms or separate taxi drivers, even though they might sometimes feel unsafe with men. Obviously, there are women who will argue for and against.
Which is why giving the option for those who want and need this separation is important. It's also important to take culture into account. In Japan there are separate metro wagons just for women because sexual abuse there is rampant.
Yes. And Uber has too believe it or not. So the few women in your life are fine without this, why are you so happy to ignore other women's thoughts? Is this some grand conspiracy from the woke mob? What it the end game here in your eyes?
This doesn't seem so much a progressive behavior as a result of segregation and broken cultures. And indeed that seems to be the origination of the practice.
>In 2019, Uber rolled out a women rider preference feature for female drivers in Saudi Arabia after women won the right to drive in 2018.
Uber either:
- lets the market equilibrium naturally settle (meaning women requesting woman drivers "pay a safety premium" - hard PR sell)
- manually suppresses the difference, creating distortions that I can't immediately imagine or articulate.
Same on the driver's side.