this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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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.
Well said, complete and concise.
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.
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.
Lemmy is filled with men right activists and misogynists that don't hide.
If it wasn't controversial MRA wouldn't exist lol
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.
Fuck uber / lyft / skip / dash anyways.
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 wouldn’t 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+
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.
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?
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.
Large numbers of men are creeps, and I say that as a man. That's the issue, that's why they're doing this.