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.
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.
Well said, complete and concise.
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.
No flak. I was gonna post the same thing. Women deserve to feel safe too.
Two people literally disagree with you that women should feel safe.
This is why these options are now available to women.
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.
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.
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.
Large numbers of men are creeps, and I say that as a man. That's the issue, that's why they're doing this.
Speaking as a man, the majority of men are creeps, but even if they weren't, it wouldn't be counterproductive. If it was, say, a 5% chance, one in twenty, that would be far and away high enough of a risk to make a move like this worthwhile. Hell even 1%. And we know the proportion is far greater than that.
No they don't, single digit percentages of sexual harassment are ever even reported let alone followed up because almost nobody gives a shit about it. Someone's squeaky clean history is basically indistinguishable from that of a serial creep.
Sadly, lots of things in the world aren't ok. It's tough out there.
I wouldn't mind if they'd implemented this the opposite way: if a woman, driver or passenger, encounters a creep, they could report that in the app and then the creep would automatically be banned from riding with women. That way decent men aren't affected and women keep more choice in drivers/passengers, and only the creeps are singled out.
You’d prefer that women are assaulted or harassed first?
Quite the opposite.
How else do you think women would be identifying creeps in your scenario?
I think this rule a massive improvement, but I also think it's very restrictive. Women can only choose to avoid all men, rather than just the creeps. So female drivers who need more passengers might feel forced to accept all men, and female passengers who can't find a ride, might be forced to accept a ride from any male driver. Which might still be a creep.
I think it's better to weed out the creeps. I think that's ultimately better for everybody. Make it harder for creeps to get a ride or passenger, instead of making it harder for women.
Maybe both should be an option.
Women riders are already forced to accept a ride from any male or female driver.
How do women riders label male drivers as creeps? After they sexually assault or harass them? That’s what my question to you was - how does putting the onus on individual women riders to report creeps after they’ve done something creepy help those riders?
I agree that there should be a way to report drivers. But you realize that already exists, right? So maybe we could just support more options for women to feel safer?
That's exactly what I'm saying: more options to be safer.
Choosing between no men or all men is certainly better than having no choice at all, but being able to filter out just the creeps would be even better.
And yes, that does mean you need to detect who the creeps are, but sexual harassment is already happening, and it would be good to use that information to stop it from happening.