Unfortunately necessary. Essentially every girl I know has had at least one bad experience with a creepy uber driver. These are people that are entering their address and often their workplace into the app. It's a big reason why a lot of my friends are picking Waymos instead.
Lyft already has such a feature, and personally I've been getting into Empower more, which also has the feature. This app pays more for drivers due to not actually acting as a taxi company but simply connecting the driver and rider marketplaces, something Uber tried to do as well but failed due to legal challenges as well as keeping margin for themselves. Empower just charged $50 per month to drivers as a subscription fee for the service and then lets them keep all the actual ride money.
However, just as with a marketplace connector like TripAdvisor or TaskRabbit, your mileage may vary (literally) in terms of driver ratings and safety, due to Empower not doing as comprehensive background checks as Uber or Lyft, so it is up to your personal risk tolerance.
This same thing that keeps on happening when we try to reinvent things "without all that stuff that just adds friction." As with software, one should understand the underlying reasons for constraints in the old system before building the second one.
Banking -> crypto and NFT "without all that stuff..." -> wash trading.
Taxi service -> Uber "without all that employer stuff..." -> drivers with no background checks and no interview process
I understand part of this is routing around the damage of monopoly maintenance (medallion system, for example), but let's fix that instead of taking away the protections in place.
Sorry for the rant. I know this is like asking water to run uphill.
Absolutely wild that none of the dissenting comments suggest a means of lowering or eliminating sexual harassment of women passengers. Why not start there? Get creative.
Separate the services. There are women-only gyms, why not women-only Uber? Give it another brand name or make it a separate company and offer services for women drivers only, women riders only.
So Uber is finally dropping the pretense of "vetted drivers" and "strict background checks" and whatever else they claim in their advertising. It's good that women get this service, but I'd be pretty concerned as a man as well. At this point whenever I call an Uber it's a 50/50 whether the person and car listed in the app will be the one picking me up. A lot of times I wonder if the driver has a license or insurance at all. They've been churning through drivers so quickly over the last decade that it's now impossible to get new ones on the service without massively lowering standards and looking the other way when something comes up as irregular.
Does anyone have experience using this feature? I can't imagine it'll be easy to get matched with a female driver. From my own experience Uber/Lyft/taxi drivers are seemingly 99%+ men.
"As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all."
I think the lawsuits probably make sense. While you can claim that there is a statistical danger, you can make that same claim about a number of other protected characteristics. Would we allow riders to request only female, heterosexual, over 45, wealthy Quaker drivers, if that happens to be the statistically safest driver characteristic?
Car share apps could have a camera and audio on mode.
- The inside of the car is surveilled and made available for both parties after the ride.
- The intent is made clear, that this is to capture a trace of any harassment or misconduct. Hopefully making this statement puts all parties on their best behaviour.
- Any failure to comply by the driver, camera blocked or audio muffled, then driver gets penalised.
Sex is a protected class under Title VII of the civil rights act. And the supreme court recently said that even majority classes (men) are protected by this. Since Uber involved in the decision to send more business to female drivers than male drivers, this would seem to me to run afoul of employment discrimination (sorry we don't need as many men workers today, too many of you competing so market forces mean we're going to pay you less, etc).
Can someone explain to me how this is (or isn't) legal under Title VII?
It seems if this is fully legal because it's the customer making the decision, then pretty much any form of "in app" discrimination is legal as long as it's the customer doing the discrimination. How long till "I don't want a black/white/gay/etc driver" options show up?
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." — George Orwell, Animal Farm
> How long till "I don't want a black/white/gay/etc driver" options show up?
Slippery slope fallacy.
> "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." — George Orwell, Animal Farm
Women being harassed by Uber drivers isn't a necessary part of life, and wanting to address this issue isn't equivalent to literal Soviet communism. This quote is waaay out of place.
Playing devil's advocate, but can you justify discriminating against an entire class of people, because of the actions of a subset? Part of the reason for protected classes is not to be reduced as an individual to the perception of the group.
I am not sure about the legal implications. But, I do see the concern.
Someone else mentioned the analogy of patients preferring physicians of a given sex.
I would not be surprised if they find a way around this by just having riders 'select which driver you want'. Effectively putting the onus on the customer to do the discrimination.
Isn't there a way for Uber to do this in a way that doesn't give preferential treatment to female drivers, even if higher demand/supply? One of:
1. Force the same market rate for female-only vs regular mode. This means a shortage of female drivers and higher wait times for users in that mode, but anyone who really wants it can use it.
2. Charge more for female-only mode to account for the lower supply, but pay the driver the same rate either way.
47 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 66.3 ms ] threadLyft already has such a feature, and personally I've been getting into Empower more, which also has the feature. This app pays more for drivers due to not actually acting as a taxi company but simply connecting the driver and rider marketplaces, something Uber tried to do as well but failed due to legal challenges as well as keeping margin for themselves. Empower just charged $50 per month to drivers as a subscription fee for the service and then lets them keep all the actual ride money.
However, just as with a marketplace connector like TripAdvisor or TaskRabbit, your mileage may vary (literally) in terms of driver ratings and safety, due to Empower not doing as comprehensive background checks as Uber or Lyft, so it is up to your personal risk tolerance.
This same thing that keeps on happening when we try to reinvent things "without all that stuff that just adds friction." As with software, one should understand the underlying reasons for constraints in the old system before building the second one.
Banking -> crypto and NFT "without all that stuff..." -> wash trading.
Taxi service -> Uber "without all that employer stuff..." -> drivers with no background checks and no interview process
I understand part of this is routing around the damage of monopoly maintenance (medallion system, for example), but let's fix that instead of taking away the protections in place.
Sorry for the rant. I know this is like asking water to run uphill.
Edit: Germany has such a service https://www.femride.de/
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm
https://onlabor.org/january-25-2026
I think the lawsuits probably make sense. While you can claim that there is a statistical danger, you can make that same claim about a number of other protected characteristics. Would we allow riders to request only female, heterosexual, over 45, wealthy Quaker drivers, if that happens to be the statistically safest driver characteristic?
- The inside of the car is surveilled and made available for both parties after the ride.
- The intent is made clear, that this is to capture a trace of any harassment or misconduct. Hopefully making this statement puts all parties on their best behaviour.
- Any failure to comply by the driver, camera blocked or audio muffled, then driver gets penalised.
Can someone explain to me how this is (or isn't) legal under Title VII?
It seems if this is fully legal because it's the customer making the decision, then pretty much any form of "in app" discrimination is legal as long as it's the customer doing the discrimination. How long till "I don't want a black/white/gay/etc driver" options show up?
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." — George Orwell, Animal Farm
Slippery slope fallacy.
> "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." — George Orwell, Animal Farm
Women being harassed by Uber drivers isn't a necessary part of life, and wanting to address this issue isn't equivalent to literal Soviet communism. This quote is waaay out of place.
Someone else mentioned the analogy of patients preferring physicians of a given sex.
I would not be surprised if they find a way around this by just having riders 'select which driver you want'. Effectively putting the onus on the customer to do the discrimination.
1. Force the same market rate for female-only vs regular mode. This means a shortage of female drivers and higher wait times for users in that mode, but anyone who really wants it can use it.
2. Charge more for female-only mode to account for the lower supply, but pay the driver the same rate either way.