Lyft is introducing a new feature that lets women and non-binary riders choose a preference to match with drivers of the same gender.
The ride-hailing company said it was a “highly requested feature” in a blog post Tuesday, saying the new feature allows women and non-binary people to “feel that much more confident” in using Lyft and also hopefully encourage more women to sign up to be drivers to access its “flexible earning opportunities.”
The service, called “Women+ Connect,” is rolling out in the coming months. Riders can turn on the option in the Lyft app, however the company warns that it’s not a guarantee that they’ll be matched with a women or non-binary person if one of those people aren’t nearby. Both the riders and drivers will need to opt-in to the feature for it work and riders must chose a gender for it to work.
What would stop me, a man, from claiming this status and requesting female drivers? While this policy was undoubtably made with good intentions, it is ripe for abuse.
Technically nothing. There is no gatekeeping in being non-binary along the lines of presentation. But you claiming this as a passenger does not effect the other passengers who are made to feel safer by the adoption of this option. A fair number of female drivers in the service are also still likely to drive for male clients regularly anyway.
However if all drivers have protections for drivers to shut down abuses by scummy clients who use the opportunity of a temporarily captive audience to be disgusting towards drivers then this overall becomes less of a concern.
Almost all forms of accommodation leave certain paths open for abuse by bad actors. Erring on the side of the person who needs additional help participating in society is usually the more ethical choice because while a bad actor can be a pain there’s usually already laws on the books or policies that can be enacted that allow you to deal with one. For the person seeking accommodation the cost of not having access can mean the world becomes a smaller and/or more dangerous place because of reasons that have nothing to do with them. In some ways that can emotionally be looked at as “letting the assholes win”.
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In general if someone wants to do you harm getting in their car and being transported to a secondary location causes survival rates to plummet. Drivers do have more options by default than their passenger unless the passenger is holding them at gunpoint.
There’s also a stunning number of cases of male Uber and Lyft drivers stalking female clients meaning the threat comes at first point of contact when someone learns where you live.
Well you see, most people aren’t assholes.
assholes are the only reason this feature exists
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Most people ARE assholes
It sounds like you need better friends.
Or there’s that old saying, if everywhere you go smells like shit, check your shoes.
Not at all, you just notice the assholes much easier than non-assholes.
In that scenario, I would guess when the driver sees you they wouldn’t let you in the car.
that would work for women but enbies can look like anyone
What abt trans women too actually. U couldn’t discriminate against a trans person just because they don’t pass.
How is a man asking for a woman driver abuse? Maybe I really fucking hate having to ride with dudebro cabbies and having to humor them with their inane conversations and would prefer a woman driver.
I understand the reasoning and positivity behind this and I do believe it comes from a really good place, it may even be beneficial to customers, but it is gender discrimination in the workplace, whether it leads to mostly positive outcomes for some people or not.
If your employees bring in different amounts of money because you’ve started to split their available workloads based on gender (especially in an industry where gender has no impact on one’s ability to do the job), you’re now likely to decide that due to this trend over time, to discriminate further, prioritising the more popular genders over others when hiring, and when firing, and when deciding wages.
After all, if one gender brings in less profits consistently than the others - because they’re stifled by company policy - why pay them as much? It makes business sense to pay them what they’re worth, and they’re measurably worth less than the other genders, now.
It’s a slippery slope. Well intentioned, but damages equality in the workplace.
Agreed. I 100% understand the rationale, but it has troubling implications. It only takes the one bad guy, but there are 25 other guys driving that night who would either be friendly or happily ignore you the whole ride.
I’d be interested in reading a breakdown of riders and drivers by gender in some representative areas. What I see this doing is, first yes, giving women and non-binary people an increased sense of safety (which I want to stress is still extremely important). But what I also see is an overall decline in service quality for women and non-binary people. Anecdote, not data, but I’ve used Lyft hundreds of times over the years in different cities. I’ve been picked up by maybe 3 people who weren’t [presumably, I didn’t ask] male identifying. On top of this, there is the possibility of certain genders earning more purely on the basis of gender. Remember - this is a bad thing for gender equality.
Something that might be better is an opt-in program with enhanced background checks, mandatory cab cameras designed to be difficult for your average person to fuck with some system for mandatory upload/secure storage of the footage, and other stuff along these lines. Do all these, regardless of gender, and you get a Secure Ride badge. The difficulty is the process and the knowledge you are under MUCH closer scrutiny. The prize is (potentially) access to a bigger piece of that that day’s possible revenue.
I don’t think the above is perfect, but they’re steps towards a better system not based on gender lines among contractors.
Now, if they were treated like honest to god employees, this kind of thing might be easier to implement. Food for thought, Lyft.
Edit: Another thing that I think would be useful in general is a safety rating system on top of the other metrics. Have users provide anonymized data visible on the driver’s profile about how safe they felt their ride was in general. Though admittedly I can see ways this could be abused or made un-useful. But I’ve personally been in situations where I did NOT feel safe, and would have rated them poorly in this area - but otherwise they got me home in one piece, and the reason I felt they were unsafe was they busted their ass all day and were almost nodding off.
In this situation, knowing how ratings play into Lyft and thinking about causes, my rating did not accurately reflect my actual sense of safety. An anonymous safety rating option, with comment, would have been appreciated.
Are they going to call it Cabracadabra?
This is, quite literally, a comically bad idea. This has literally been used as a punchline in fiction.
What’s next? The “no blacks” option? I’m sure you can find studies to validate that fear too.
Lately we seem to be going backwards in equality. Men are getting shat on, especially those that haven’t even committed the atrocities they are being punished for.
Why pick and choose who can use the feature to request gender. Make it fair and allow everyone or none.
There’s a lot to unpack here…
But mostly I suggest you learn about the difference in equity and equality.
Equality (what you are arguing for) is treating people the same.
Equity (what this feature promotes) is giving people what they need to be successful.
Equality aims to promote fairness, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same help. Equity appears unfair, but it actively moves everyone closer to success by “leveling the playing field.”
Equity involves trying to understand and give people what they need to enjoy full, successful lives. Equality, in contrast, aims to give everyone the same thing, which does not work to create a more equal society, only to preserve the status quo, in the presence of systemic inequalities.
Given that violent crime in the ride share industry is committed almost universally by men and disproportionately against women, this feature aims to provide equity to support more women as both riders and drivers.
this feature aims to provide equity to support more women as both riders and drivers.
it aims to provide equity, but through a really shitty and half-assed method that results in systemic discrimination
Lyft could be vetting their drivers, taking a hardline approach on drivers which are reported, a trusted driver program, etc, anything that would actually be protecting vulnerable people from abusers, but instead went with the easiest most simple minded approach (which also doesn’t protect any vulnerable men) because they have no problem treating their drivers like shit
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Men have it so hard! 😔
Kinda telling this was your first comment when it’s about women’s safety and the rising number of abuses women have faced as passengers from the men driving.
Were you trying to miss the point or are you just naturally dumb?
Kinda telling this was your first comment when it’s about
women’swhite’s safety and the rising number of abuseswomenwhites have faced as passengers from themenblacks driving.Go on then, show us your racist study published by a reputable source.
I could show you a study showing that black people commit every single crime on earth and it wouldn’t make disceiminating against them any less racist.
You seem to be the only person arguing for that though.
Go on then, show us your sexist study published by a reputable source.
The person your replying to isn’t actually commenting on race, you just failed to understand their point.
This is the dumbest take I’ve seen. What are you even getting on about. This is just rancid bigotry veiled as concern.
What are you even basing this on? Are you afraid of black people? Or do you just hate the LGBTQIA+ community and women? Or are you still privileged as one of those two that you don’t use Uber and are just spreading shits because you can?
Like it or not, Lyft is helping customers discriminate on the basis of gender. It may not have come from bad intentions, but it could have bad consequences. I’m not sure which genders will be less popular as a result of this, but they may have a harder time generating an income from Lyft. (If this feature takes off.)
I’m not saying that this feature necessarily has no place. I can empathize with people wanting to pick the gender of their driver, but it may not end up being fair for everyone.
If you could empathize, then you’d understand how shitty of a sentence, “WhAt abOUT BlAckS,” is. Or, “It’s okay to ignore the problem 'cause it’s not fair to men.”
Really think about it. Guys have no choice but to not have the option. What is taken away? This is the same BS as, “Why do we need a lactation room? MEN can’t use it.” “How come women get days off for their PMS-related things, I don’t menstruate.”
I’m just calling out discrimination by comparing it to discrimination. Just because you think one is better than the other doesn’t mean other people do.
So I’m guessing affirmative action is discrimination?
Yes.
You’d probably defend a Nazi getting punched
If they haven’t hurt anyone and they’re merely using their free speech then I would not defend assault and battery on them. Just because their ideas and speech are deplorable does not give you the right to assault them.
There it is
Well, it is a valid argument. Since women are often uncomfortable around men they don’t know, it does seem fair to give them an option to avoid male Lyft drivers. What if someone is uncomfortable with a black driver? It is a similar situation.
Honestly, if I were a woman I would possibly use this feature. Personal safety goes above any moral ideals that I may be tooting around. That’s why I’m kind of split about this. People should be able to feel as safe and comfortable as possible, but male drivers shouldn’t feel like they’re less preferred by a portion of Lyft’s users.
You’re talking in circles. The problem is because men are the largest perpetrator, well also being the biggest benefactor of being a man. They are literally on both ends. Women on the other hand are largely targeted by men for crimes of various sorts, well also not benefiting from the patriarchy.
Hell they have to have separate train cars for women in japan because men can’t keep their hands to themselves.
There is nothing societal that benefits black drivers. That’s exactly the point. There is no equity here. If I’m a black driver, chances are I’m already on the back foot. People might cancel their rides once they see me, or bring cops into play and have other violence brought against me. Remember that one black dude in Central Park who was bird watching and had a woman start accusing him of stuff.
Don’t put women further on the back foot. Don’t put persons of color on the back foot. Cis white men already have the advantage in so many ways.
It’s not funny anymore.
Since your comment will just look like one link for most people, here is an actual readable list:
- https://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/rapist-doncaster-taxi-driver-jailed-for-string-of-sex-attacks-on-disabled-women-4110673
- https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-01-08/disgraceful-taxi-driver-rapist-jailed-for-15-years
- https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/cabbies-helped-snare-taxi-rapist-25371415
- https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/rapist-rotherham-taxi-driver-ordered-26575655
- https://www.beds.police.uk/news/bedfordshire/news/2021/december/taxi-driver-jailed-for-1993-rape-after-dna-match-decades-on/
- https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/croydon-taxi-rapist-homayon-ahmadi-b979493.html
- https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-06-15/taxi-driver-asked-to-use-customers-toilet-before-raping-her
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys
- https://news.stv.tv/north/taxi-driver-saifal-zaveri-who-raped-and-sexually-assaulted-teens-in-private-hire-handed-jail-term
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e73ddnw12o
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12423375/Rapist-taxi-drivers-warning-issued-British-tourists-Mediterranean-holiday-hotspot-woman-23-says-a
- https://pembrokeshire-herald.com/64975/ten-years-in-prison-for-milford-haven-taxi-driver-who-raped-passenger/
Most bigots think they have what are “really good” reasons for their bigotry
You could google a dozen articles about men being attacked by women too. Or a person of one race being attacked by a person of another race. This random list of anecdotes proves nothing.
And I could do the same for any given race.
There’s at least three white people in there. My point wasn’t about race. The fact that there are a lot of non white people in that selection reflects the fact that taxi drivers aren’t that well paid and like a lot of poorly paid manual jobs there are quite a few immigrants doing that job. If we then extrapolate from what we know about sex offenders in society we can say that in any particular population there will be a number of sex offenders. Having said that, John Worboys, who is white, seems to be the most prolific of the bunch in there.
They are, having omitted duplicating cases, just the first results for a search for ‘taxi driver rapist.’ Odd that there aren’t any women in the selection, no?
The links you provided seem to be UK centred, so it’s important to remember that in UK law a woman cannot be convicted of rape, only of sexual assault because under the letter of the law rape requires penetration
Hence, if you compare male vs female rape perpetrators you’ll always get an overwhelming majority of men
You’re technically correct about the distinction in law but I think the point still easily stands. Unless you can find me five women taxi drivers charged with sexually assaulting their passengers.
So this feature is matching with someone of the same gender only. That’s the impression this gives. So women with women, nonbinary to nonbinary. Ok. Why are men cut off if that’s the case? How many more lines of code could it possibly be to just implement it for everyone instead of specifically choosing to exclude people? It would be the exact same PR if it was made available to everyone. There’s zero reason this couldn’t just be implemented universally. In terms of this making things safer or more comfortable, couldn’t someone that is a slimeball just lie? The article says you have to choose your gender. What is actually stopping someone from misusing this?
I doubt exclusion of men from this feature has anything to do with it being more work to add men. Hell, it’s actually LESS work to enable it for everyone than it is to add exclusions. Excluding men was a business decision, I’m sure.
Now, I’m in the privileged position of being male, so take this with a grain of salt, but I entirely disagree with the blatant sexism of this feature. I get the purpose, but it feels horribly misguided. Can women not commit violent or sexual crimes? Can nonbinary people not commit violent or sexual crimes? Only men can apparently commit these crimes, according to the people who thought this feature up. Sexual crimes by women, for example, go wildly underreported…Even if they were using statistics to justify how they implemented this feature, they didn’t do their homework.
You’re missing the point. Obviously anyone is capable of commiting these crimes, but men overwhelmingly commit them to women than any other circumstance, and they’re almost always much more violent than the inverse. Shit, my friend showed me a TikTok the other day about a woman who rejected a man, then slapped him when he wouldn’t take no for an answer. You know what he did in response? He hit her in the head with a fucking brick.
Instead of instantly going to “this is sexist”, maybe stop and think why it’s even being considered in the first place.
Oh well if you saw it in a tiktok that was totally probably not at all fake, it must be true.
“men overwhelmingly commit them to women than any other circumstance” Go ahead and give me a source for that.
It’s probably due to the saturation of how many male drivers Lyft has. It reports that only 23% are female. While it doesn’t say how many non-binary drivers there are, I doubt they make up more than a few percent. That puts men at ~75% driver share. So the chance of a a female rider, which according to Lyft are about half of their riders, being paired with is vastly smaller than a male rider getting a man.
0.5*0.75=0.375 chance for a man to get a male driver.
0.5*0.23=0.115 chance for a women to get a female driver.
While yes, you can abuse the system, you have to make a more conscious effort about being a “slimeball”. This isn’t necessarily a feature to prevent SH and SA, but more to make drivers and riders more comfortable.
Oh, and about the amount of code: it would be less code, as you do not need to filter and can just start a match-search.
Okay, well let me ask a question…
If a person identifies as non-binary, then what fucking business they got asking me my gender?
because someone else being non-binary doesn’t make you non-binary?
they’re not saying no one is allowed a gender, or that other people don’t have genders
they’re saying their gender is a different one beyond the usual two.
like how you don’t have to just choose between vanilla or chocolate because strawberry also exists.
Can a male driver, then, identify himself as non-binary? Say that he does this to avoid all the hassle and possible loss of income caused by a form of workplace gender discrimination.
By the way, you’re not supposed to ask why one is non-binary, right?
yeah you’re not also supposed to ask why someone is a certain race, religion, height, weight etc
and lol at the idea of being non binary is “less hassle”
Look, ‘non-binary’, whatever the hell that’s supposed to even mean, basically adds up to ‘I don’t want to tell you what my body structure is’
If someone doesn’t want to reveal their gender to me, hey no problem by me. But privacy is a two way street ya know. What business do ‘non-binary’ people have asking anyone else about their sex/gender?
Non-binary has nothing to do with secrecy? It’s a catch all term for genders that don’t fall under the man or woman category. It pretty much means they don’t identify as a man or a woman but as something else, there are many other identities a person may have
i don’t think it’s hard to divine the meaning of “non” - it means not
and binary means “choice between two options”
put together it means “not one of the two options.”
I believe I already covered your other points (as did the other person replying), but they did reveal their gender.
Consider this: It’s more like
“Did you watch the soccer or tennis match last nigjt?”
“I don’t really like sports, I watched a movie instead”
“why are you keeping it a secret whether you watched the soccer or tennis?”
Its not a secret, there just happens to be more than two choices.
“is your name John or Christopher?”
“neither its David”
“why are you keeping your name a secret!”
etc
I’m just here for my popcorn and comment entertainment. Which did not disappoint
Why not let men do the same thing?
It might have something to do with women being at a higher risk of being abused. But unless you’ve been living under a rock you already knew that. So what are you really asking?
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(numbers pulled out of my ass, but…)
99% of men don’t need it so won’t use it. 99% of the remainder will use it to find a target to harass. Whoever is left might miss out on a great feature, but they’re barely a rounding error.
Personally, I’d love a feature that let me pick a driver that would just shut up.
It’s discrimination when a man does it
/s
I’m a little curious how they stop it.
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Maybe a gay man feels more comfortable with men driving… it’s not that crazy…
Or even a straight one. Doesn’t have to be orientation specific.
What do men have to fear?
Getting shot, stabbed, robbed, beaten, choked, ganged up on, sexually assaulted. Weird, the exact same list that women have to fear.
Oh except men also have to worry about being falsely accused of sexual misconduct, having their names put on the sex offender registry and the entire rest of their lives ruined because no one will believe them.
Getting shot, stabbed, robbed, beaten, choked, ganged up on, sexually assaulted. Weird, the exact same list that women have to fear.
Lmao this is just categorically false, and there’s so much fucking data to prove it. I’ve never once felt threatened that a woman would do any of these things to me, but I definitely have feltoke other men would.
Oh except men also have to worry about being falsely accused of sexual misconduct, having their names put on the sex offender registry and the entire rest of their lives ruined because no one will believe them.
While is sadly true, it’s so much less common than sexual misconduct happening to women. It’s so rare in fact that this has never been a fear of mine because I treat every person I meet with respect and I know for a fact that I’m not a creep. Same goes for all of my male friends. If you have a fear that this may happen to you, I think you need to reassess how you interact with women. I would be willing to bet that things you do to women you see as innocent flirting or something when in reality it makes those women extremely uncomfortable.
“Lmao this is just categorically false” I’m sorry, are you saying women are incapable of wielding a knife? Or pulling a trigger on a gun?
“I’ve never once felt threatened that a woman would do any of these things” Oh well if you personally have never experienced such a thing, it must not ever happen to anyone.
/S
You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Just fuck off.
“I’ve never once felt threatened that a woman would do any of these things” Oh well if you personally have never experienced such a thing, it must not ever happen to anyone.
Have you looked up how little this happens to men compared to women? Unprovoked, it’s almost non-existent. Again, if you’re being threatening to women then I’m not surprised this happens to you.
Your attempts at attacking my character only demonstrate how incapable you are of making a genuine point.
Ummm excuse me I have never felt threatened by a man, so why are women complaining?
Also, are you going to use 13/90 as an excuse to be racist too?
Ummm excuse me I have never felt threatened by a man, so why are women complaining?
Wait are seriously asking that?
Also, are you going to use 13/90 as an excuse to be racist too?
“Too” as in sexist? Why is it sexist to point out the reality that women are disproportionately violently assaulted by men than men are by women? And what does that have to do with race?
That’s really bullshit. This result will be that every male drivers will become non binary to not be discriminated by the customers.
This is not because some suffer that it is correct to punish an entire gender for that.
Wasn’t this a plotline in Bojack Horseman?
Cool, now both Lyft and Uber need a “no extra conversation” option too. I don’t want to talk to the driver when I use rideshares, I hate the incessant small talk they want me to be a part of. I know some people might like it or at the very least not mind it, but I absolutely can’t stand it 9 times out of 10. Give me the option to specifically not have it please.
Last time I used Uber I remember seeing this feature as an option.
Wow, was not aware although after just looking it up, evidently it is only for ‘premium’ rides and not standard. As if having someone not talk to you should cost extra. 🙄
Lyft announces new feature: Separate, but equal.
Let’s see how this plays out for them.
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If a system is bad for women we blame the the system, if a system is bad for men we blame the men.
?
Lawsuit when
