6d ago

Uber will let women drivers and riders request to avoid being paired with men starting next month.

www.uber.com

Coming Soon: Women Preferences

Riders

Request on-demand: When requesting a trip on demand, women riders will see an option called Women Drivers. If the wait time is longer than anticipated, they can always opt for another ride with a faster pickup.
Reserve in advance: For more planning and certainty, women riders can use Reserve to pre-book a trip with women drivers.
Set a preference: Riders can set a preference for a woman driver in their app settings. While it’s not guaranteed, turning on the Women preference increases your chances of being matched with a woman driver.

For Drivers

Women drivers can simply toggle on the “Women Rider Preference” in their app settings. If they want to receive trip requests from all riders, they can turn the preference off at any time.

30 comments

i'll note that all the issues raised in the comments would be very nicely solved by proper public transport with cameras in the vehicles, hell many (most?) subways have pretty amazing systems where they have people actively monitoring things and you can discreetly chat with the safety staff to alert them to issues or just say that you're feeling unsafe.
and yes, i do realize you can't have subways in rural wyoming, thank you.
I'm not mad. A really drunk guy got handsy with my wife when she was driving years ago. She busted his nose and dragged him out of the car in stop and go traffic and left him.
In before perverts registering fake accounts and requesting women-only pickups from remote places.
- If only there were some measures that the company could take to minimize that risk... Wait a second, I can think of half a dozen.
  
  But will they use them? No.
- arnt some male drivers exclusively pikcing up woman,
  
  As there are far less drivers than customers, I'd expect it to be much easier to sort out drivers with bad intentions. I guess if you sign up as an Uber driver you have to undergo at least some minimum level of identification (drivers license etc.). A perverted customer can sign up as 'Lisa Nicegirl' today and 'Jenny Innocent' tomorrow.
Can I request only men drivers?
- Don't be sexist.
Good, people deserve to feel safer.
- For just an extra $6 a ride!
wondering if they will include me as a trans woman
- I would certainly hope so.
- Seems to depend on the rider. The video OP posted shows that you can cancel your trip if your "expectations aren't being met and the driver isn't as expected"
I dunno... I get the motivation but this feels pretty discriminatory.
- Women face higher rates of violence from male attackers so no it’s not.
  
  The use above says "it feels" and you answer that it is not.
  I understand this is a gendred issue, but acknowledging feelings of people seems like something we should all agree on.
  
  OK but if I'm a dude and I want to request a dude I can't, so it is
Is this trans-inclusive? I'm guessing not, stuff like this rarely is; however using services like Uber by myself honestly makes me uncomfortable.
- Women are on average trans-friendlier.
  
  While that may be true, I'm concerned about the possibility that they'll add some form of ID verification and force people to go off their legal gender. As someone in Texas, it is impossible for me to get that changed. Even federally, because despite the recently ruling that is forcing the feds to allow gender changes on passports, Texas will still get mad about you having the """incorrect""" gender.
Is this CABRACADABRA?
Cool, I expect demand for female drivers is to increase a lot.
So what stops men from using their wife's account to order an Uber?
- The driver will be looking for the wife.
  
  They don’t really enforce profile pics anymore for riders. That might need to change if this is going to be successful.

30 comments