Discussion

Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US

cheezur: We are reinventing, from first principles, the discrimination we fought so hard against in the 20th century.

jlawson: Because we're learning, from ground truth, why we discriminated in the first place.

slowmovintarget: The real problem is that this is necessary.This same thing that keeps on happening when we try to reinvent things "without all that stuff that just adds friction."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 processI 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.

hexyl_C_gut: If this form of discrimination is ok, can we get other filters?

xenospn: This is as discriminatory as choosing strawberry ice cream over chocolate. To say, not at all.

bsenftner: A population of class action attorneys just smiled. A paycheck is materializing.

glouwbug: Women's only gyms and hours exist already. If there's a need, and they feel safer this way, let them have it

GaryBluto: > they feel safer this way,What if somebody started a Whites-only gym because it made them feel safer?

voxl: There really is a lefty blindspot in this discussion centered around the uncomfortable reality that leftist spaces are typically misandrist, but alas.

paxys: Do you think having women's only bathrooms is discrimination as well?

stackedinserter: Women's only hours is a clear discrimination. It shouldn't exist, or exist also for men.I guess we're moving full steam towards sharia-law-like segregation.

waterhouse: If Whites had, on average, 2.5 standard deviations lower upper-body strength than non-Whites, then maybe.

commandlinefan: That's not why women ask for women-only gyms.

marky1991: What is your justification for that?If an employer did the same thing, would you argue that's also not discriminatory? Or, to pick a notorious example, if a cake shop only agreed to sell to straight couples, would that be the same? If not, why not?

bc569a80a344f9c: In your cake shop example, the more accurate version would be some gay couples only agreeing to buy wedding cakes from cake shops with gay bakers.On account of it's the customer choosing the service provider, albeit with the help of filters provided by an aggregator, instead of service providers denying service to customers based on their belonging to a class.

marky1991: Why does it change whether it's discrimination or not depending on who does it?I don't see how the distinction is material.

nathanaldensr: Idealism meeting reality.

commandlinefan: > If an employerActually, in this case, the rider _is_ a (temporary) employer.

mothballed: I had no idea you can request to exclude on the basis of protected class. Could you exclude black riders as well as a safety precaution in places where say that demographic has higher homicide rates?

asmor: That's not even as close to as smart of a gotcha as you think it is.

ray023: It has nothing do with smart, its just cold hard facts. You just to woke to see the contradiction.

maest: Does this mean women drivers will command higher rates?

jlawson: It'd be hilarious if women formed their own closed rideshare economy; they'd discover that they demand much higher prices from each other than they get from men.

kelseyfrog: No one owes anyone moral consistency.

ray023: Of course NOT! And look at the wokies all downvoting you, it's literally the same thing. Women get creeps so they are afforded special privileges because incidents are high. There are areas were you can pull up stats and its STATISTICALLY PROVEN that a feature like this would let men AND women avoid harm this way! But you can not have that of course.

mholm: 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.

SoftTalker: The other night at the grocery store a woman with a cart and groceries approached me in the parking lot, asked if I (a male) could give her a ride home. Was probably innocent enough, but I declined. No way I'm going to accept even the possibility that she'd claim I did something, with no witnesses. That's just the world we live in and it's sad in a way. No trust anymore.I hope Uber drivers have in interior camera running in their cars, for their own protection.

irl_zebra: This incident is creepy enough that I would also not agree to a give a random stranger a ride home, absent any additional context or mitigations. Maybe to avoid waking up in an ice bath with my liver gone. But, to not give a ride because of some perceived idea that they would claim you assaulted them or something is a bit "this person should go touch some grass" or whatever.

RajT88: The world we live in is one where women being assaulted is an order of magnitude larger problem than women falsely accusing someone of assault.

nathanaldensr: Hardly a rant. You're just describing the "move fast and break things" ethic (or should I say unethic). Or said another way: "all of the convenience with none of the responsibility."

EGreg: InterestingOne of you is afraid that YOU are going to get assaulted or worse.The other is afraid you’re going to get ACCUSED of it.What has this society become?

avidiax: Uber is already being sued by male drivers in California:https://onlabor.org/january-25-2026I 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, wealth Quaker drivers, if that happens to be the statistically safest driver characteristic?

nout: I think as a society we moved away from trying to say that women are exactly the same as men in every aspect, so this change seems reasonable to me.

recursivedoubts: "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."https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm

dchftcs: You need to develop some empathy and learn that false accusations can destroy lives and families. You have no right to force someone accept even a 1% chance that something like that happens, even if it's less prevalent than assaults.

hexyl_C_gut: If people feel safer with white only gyms, can people have that?

kelvinjps10: Go and have yours. Like nobody stopping you

hexyl_C_gut: Civil Rights law

EGreg: My libertarian view on discrimination (independent of the Civil Rights Act) is this:If a service is not widely available in the region, any systematic discrimination leading to refusing to provide service, or specific level of service or care, based on anything unrelated to the ability to provide it, should be illegal, locally, in that community. Rules like ousting disruptive customers apply across the board.If a service is widely available, however, then “x-only” service providers should be allowed to operate (as indeed they are with women-only gyms, Jewish-only clubs, or nightclubs that let women in first and charge the men) as long as they advertise it up front and not make people go there only to find out that “ladies can go in free of charge, men pay $300 for a table with bottle service”PS: replace “ladies” and “men” with “whites” and “blacks” and hear how that sounds. And no, citing crime or violence statistics shouldn’t play a role in shaping whether people can get into places, whether it’s women citing male vs bear violence / harassment or people citing racial FBI statistics on violence / harassment. This is the prosecutor’s fallacy.

marky1991: Yes, I think the argument that "discrimination is fine so long as it doesn't result in complete shutout of a vendor/customer" is reasonable. But that argument didn't fly for the cake controversy case, so society doesn't seem to agree.

asmor: Typically? I mean sure, those spaces exist, but the typical "leftist space" is usually still drenched in rape culture, maybe with some pretense of not being so (ending up as a bad experience for everyone except the self-important people running it).

paxys: 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.

xenospn: That might be tough - I remember having plenty of women drivers back in 2012 when uber and Lyft just got started. These days they’re extremely rare.

gmueckl: This might be mitigated somewhat by offering female drivers a similar options to limit themselves to female passengers. It would ovviously only work whwre demand is actually high enough.

rkomorn: Isn't that what's described in the article as well?

ravenstine: What does "creepy" mean here? It seems like we're lumping in claims of men being creepy with men committing violence. Being creepy in and of itself is not a good reason to institutionalize discrimination.EDIT: How intellectual of you, HN.

brookst: It would be funny if the market showed women were willing to pay a premium to avoid being raped?

lordfrito: 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

paxys: Is it illegal to set a filter for a female gynecologist over a male one? Or a male gym trainer over a female one? Or a masseuse? Is it illegal to set a gender preference on a dating app? Is it illegal to issue a casting call for a female actor or model?This kind of "discrimination" is a part of society, and has been tested in courts plenty of times.

sheikhnbake: imagine typing this in 2026

khazhoux: It’s a legitimate legal question

kelseyfrog: 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.

brookst: So when you read Uber’s annual safety reports you didn’t see anything in this vein, either as actions taken or changes in statistics?

wosined: Why does the same argument never work in reverse? When men want something for themselves then the same people say that that would be sexist.

brookst: Considering that 90% of sexual abuse in Uber’s safety report was committed by men, it seems disingenuous to frame this as some unreasonably discriminatory “oh they just want to have their own space”.

slowmovintarget: Are you saying it's not acceptable for a woman to choose a female driver over a male driver for a sense of her own safety?Deep breath in... There are two types of discrimination. Paraphrasing Thomas Sowell, let's call them Type I and Type II.Type II discrimination is the evil awful kind we rightfully rail against. It is "treating people negatively, based on arbitrary aversions or animosities to individuals of a particular race or sex..."Type I discrimination is of the broader sort; "an ability to discern differences in the qualities of people and things, choosing accordingly." We run our lives with this kind of discrimination: is this food safe to eat? is this activity safe to participate in? do I trust this person given what I know about them?>> Ideally, Discrimination I, applied to people, would mean judging each person as an individual, regardless of what group that person is part of. But here, as in other contexts, the ideal is seldom found among human beings in the real world, even among people who espouse that ideal. If you are walking at night down a lonely street, and see up ahead a shadowy figure in an alley, do you judge that person as an individual or do you cross the street and pass on the other side? The shadowy figure in the alley could turn out to be a kindly neighbor, out walking his dog. But, when making such decisions, a mistake on your part could be costly, up to and including costing you your life. [1]This kind of discrimination is what we're talking about. I'd venture that not only is it OK, it is necessary. In this case, men that have had no background check, and whose form of employment is as an Uber driver are more likely to harass women (or do worse) than a female driver. Allowing women to make a selection based on this likelihood means that female customers that are alone can make choices to still use the service while reducing the overall risk.Mitigation of this risk in normal taxi services take the form of background checks, bonds, and a chain of responsibility running from employer to employee to customer. It places more risk on the employer deliberately. Uber deliberately chooses to avoid this risk and responsibility. That choice is baked into their business model. That means enabling this kind of discrimination from their customers is a required feature of the service.[1] Discrimination and Disparities, by Thomas Sowell

glouwbug: Your average woman subjects themselves to a spectrum of sexual harassment ranging from cat calling to approaches - or even worse - by just leaving the house. Imagine them in gyms in workout clothing, or night club dresses in locked vehicles. If the solution is to limit what they wear, we're part of the problem

ShowalkKama: > Allowing women to make a selection based on this likelihood means that female customers that are alone can make choices to still use the service while reducing the overall risk.I'm failing to see how anything you say could be used as a guideline to pick between "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination. The major distinction you draw between "Type II" and "Type I" is the fact that one is fueled by "arbitrary aversion" which is not a particularly useful distinction.What if I denied entry to black people from my bar because ""they commit more crimes"" and ""are more likely to break stuff"", is it morally ok? Why not? My opinion is that no, it's not ok because the majority of people punished were never going to behave in an uncivil way.The same logic can be easily applied to this situation. Are men more likely to behave sexually inappropriately (which ranges from verbal harassment to assault)? Sure. Is it the majority? Hell no, it's nowhere close.(Of course it's worth nothing that the "majority" does not necessarily have 50.01%, it's just an arbitrary line you can draw as long as you are consistent about it)

sanswork: Are there many assaults on uber passengers because they are white? Are there many assaults on uber passengers because they are women? There is your answer.

ShowalkKama: how did you manage to use the internet without reading someone say that """13% of people commit 50% of the crimes"""?

sanswork: I understand socioeconomic factors so I just ignore racist talking points.

ShowalkKama: the fact that skin color can be a proxy for socioeconomic factors does not change the statistics. Do you investigate why a rapist has raped someone and then ignore it if the reason is socioeconomic factors?If applying your logic on skin color leads to discrimination then maybe it's discrimination even when the discriminated party is males.

Ekaros: Yes unless there is almost same amount of male only bathrooms. As member of most hated minority I can accept that there is correspondingly to population less bathrooms. So 51% of bathrooms should me female only and 49% of them should be male only.

bombcar: this is actually an interesting problem for building designers, because the "fair" scenario of equal space for each ends up in too few female restrooms (assuming a natural split of clientele) because the men get urinals which can be packed in like sardines, the women don't.Even if you go "fair" and have the same number of drains regardless of size you often end up with lines for the women.Most large place compensate by putting in way too many toilets on average or just hope there isn't a crush-time.The best place to see this in action is at a stadium with 50/50 fans during half-time or other break.

slowmovintarget: If someone is presenting themselves to you in person for entry into your bar, you have far more information to make a judgement on than the color of their skin... so it is not the same.In the case of a woman coming into contact with some driver and volunteering location information like her home address, she has little to no information to make that judgement. Providing her just that bit of information, and allowing her to discriminate based on it, makes her safer. Ideally, she'd have way more information than just whether the driver is male or female. The reputation information helps, but isn't always reliable.

bombcar: There are so many ways around that you really don't even need to bother with it, just don't be putting up "No Irish Need Apply" or such.Hints: membership clubs, religious organizations (Gainz Я God)

1718627440: True, but I can control the order of magnitude of women being assaulted by me, I can't control the order of magnitude of women falsely accusing me of assault.

brookst: You mean a cake brokerage or something?These platforms connect service providers and consumers. That should be obvious, I think.A better challenge would be if these same platforms allowed racial selections. Which I think everyone would be uncomfortable with in a way “let women avoid men” does not evoke.Probably because of motivation. To my knowledge, there’s no evidence of racially motivated bad behavior on these platforms, but there certainly is for gender-based bad behavior[1]So the apparently-similar hyptothetixal is not that similar, though still useful for rhetoric.1. https://uber.app.box.com/s/lea3xzb70bp2wxe3k3dgk2ghcyr687x3?... (Page 20)

bombcar: > same platforms allowed racial selectionsNobody seems to care that dating platforms (and porn I guess) are entirely built around racial selections, among others.

bombcar: The point I took away is that since the normal methods of "ok discrimination" are not available and Uber refuses to do the needful on their behalf, women should be able to "use the big gun".The reality is that if Uber rapes are an issue, and something like this is not allowed, women will just stop using it entirely.Or special Uberpods will be developed where the driver is completely encased and the passenger has a "auto drive to police station" button.

sanswork: [delayed]

ShowalkKama: >If someone is presenting themselves to you in person for entry into your bar, you have far more information to make a judgement on than the color of their skin... so it is not the same.So the difference between "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination is the amount of information on which the decision is based upon?Logically then uber could add a "white only" option, "no queer" and "no leftist". (of course this is arbitrary but you can easily come up with a reason why: if you split any group of real people in two it's only natural that one group has an higher incidence of a negative trait)This also has a second problem: what if we let the passenger know not only the sex but also if the driver ate fish in the morning (and hundreds of other useless facts)? Does that make it discrimination because they have far more information?I guess not but then how do you decide what information is valuable in order to decide if there is enough information to judge the individual instead of going off statistics? How can you say that our theoretical racist patron is in fact racist and not going off the only valuable information?

slowmovintarget: > So the difference between "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination is the amount of information on which the decision is based upon?That's a straw-man argument.

oceansky: It's 80%.https://www.uber.com/us/en/newsroom/gamechangers/

paxys: That's skewed as it is, but I bet it'll be worse if they count miles or hours driven rather than accounts registered.

1718627440: If the others would be shared men and women bathrooms, yes?