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.
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?
Higher risk for woman of being abused does not mean that for man of being abused is 0.
I don’t understand why if something bad is more propably to happed to woman we make special exception in the rules just to exclude man of this protection.
Since most men are abused by other men, letting men choose to be matched with more male drivers would actually increase their risk of getting abused.
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Can you at least tell me for what country you want to see a source, so I don’t have to look through and present to you the crime statistics of several countries?
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So you know that most violent crimes are done by men (for the US is a source this for example: https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2020-supplemental-statistical-tables).
But for some magical reason you belief that specifically when driving a taxi everything we know about crime patterns is suddenly thrown out of the window?
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Why is that providing statistics that show something like black people commit more crime is considered rascist, but if you want to do it for men it’s A-Ok? Also how come if we see something like black people committing more crime we want to know how society caused it, but if it’s men we just want to say men are shitbags. This really seems like it boils down to you and others justifying hatred.
If a system is bad for women we blame the the system, if a system is bad for men we blame the men.
Generally there is an underlying concept of “being more evenly matched”. On average women do face more risk of being physically outmatched by men. If another woman became aggressive then their chances of coming out of the altercation would be more “fair” when matching like with like. If you’ve ever been in a good natured but honest wrestling match with the opposite sex you can usually see the power difference and the results can be pretty sobering to a female participant. These dynamics apply to social situations. If you are afraid of the outsized potential of harm someone has towards you then you are more or less forced to behave in an oppressed fashion if they choose to be a jerk because sticking up for yourself comes with the potential of a threat you are not equipped to come out on top of.
The chance of a woman being abused by another woman is also not zero but the level of threat is more on par with what they are physically and psychologically equipped to combat.
You explained that woman are in higher risk. But you did not explain why because woman are in higher risk we should only protect them and not everyone, even if protecting everyone would be less costly.
Creating UI to select driver’s sex is easier than verifing your sex and then if you’re woman showing an option. This is active work hours to disallow man from a protection.
How many times have you been assaulted or abused by a woman? Because almost every single woman I know can count the multiple times they’ve been abused or sexually assaulted by a man. Just because everyone is capable doesn’t mean everyone is equally likely to commit these crimes.
I’m not denying 1., stop assuming I do with cheap arguments like “How many times have you been abused?”. Yes, woman are more likely to be sexual victims.
But my question is why doing 3.? For Lyft it costs basically the same if not less when allowing the feature generally to everyone.
I just don’t see the necessity of it considering the overwhelming majority of drivers are already male. This feature is trying to even out the odds of women getting picked up by other women which just isn’t very likely right now.
To seriously answer your question though, this is a marketing tactic to get more business from women who they can see use the app less than men. They’re a business at the end of the day and it’s a way they’re predicting, whether correct or not, to increase sales.
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Facilitating allowing the sex or gender selection of a service person at a company is generally illegal because it is a discriminatory work practice. There is however some flexibility to be made that keeps the company safe from greater liability when it is in the interest of safety for women because safety issues on a systemic scale are provable in a court of law.
If anything you should probably be arguing for more services - maybe a safe driver selection based on years of safe driving and spotless customer record which would potentially benefit those with social anxiety or previous trauma. More than one service can exist at the same time after all.
When you argue for a service to be removed from a vulnerable group because of personal spite usually the reaction isn’t favorable. You’d be better off directing that energy somewhere positive than spending on sour grapes.
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Because women have to fear men more than men have to fear women.
Yea but for any normal dude trying to do this as a job this means he gets less rides and less money
Sounds like a pretty good trade for human safety.
Not proportionally though. If the service is less safe for women and non-binary people, then fewer of those people will make full use of the service. So either way, the male drivers probably aren’t getting their custom. The safety features increase the size of the rider pool even as they might exclude some riders from some drivers. Women and non-binary drivers might take over the additional riders, but those drivers might have previously been driving men who are now left for male drivers to pick up. The overall impact to male drivers isn’t as bad as just losing those opportunities.
(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
What do men have to fear?
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.