Probably gonna get flak for this
Oh please.
You know perfectly well it’s not a controversial opinion.
Comment on Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US
Wammityblam@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
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 naive as hell to pretend that men being weird or sexual towards women isn’t the most common.
Viceversa@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Lemmy is filled with men right activists and misogynists that don’t hide.
Wammityblam@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
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
ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 11 hours ago
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.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
It is worse.
SerRikari@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
Don’t say that. I came here to get away from those twats and speak with at least somewhat rational people.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
If it wasn’t controversial MRA wouldn’t exist lol
BassTurd@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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.
Canconda@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
Fuck uber / lyft / skip / dash anyways.
dhork@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
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.
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?
daychilde@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
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.
dhork@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
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?
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. Yes, I understand the safety thing. But a store that catered to women wouldn’t be able to bar men from entering.
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.
ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 3 hours ago
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 the difference? I doubt it.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
Large numbers of men are creeps, and I say that as a man. That’s the issue, that’s why they’re doing this.
dhork@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Is there a technical definition of “large” that justifies this? If not, then this is all based on feelings.
I think it’s bad news to generalize entire large groups like this, no matter how good the intentions are.
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
There have been a few studies. Most estimates put it at around 20% of men engage in actively degrading behaviour, sexual harassment, or have had a history of sexual assault, with between 5-8% actually engaging in violence. It isn’t everyone, but it is around 1 in 5 which is not a small group that could be classified as “Creeps.” It’s a lot higher percentage of the population than, for example, the percentage of violent extremists among Muslims.
brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
Anecdotally, large by the fact that every single woman I know has experienced some form of sexual harassment. And that’s not hyperbolic.
More abstract, large by the fact that it is even a discussion. If a not inconsequential amount of men have harassed women enough that this is just brought up at all, then it’s an issue that needs to be addressed in some form or fashion.
Pudutr0n@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Well yeah it’s based on feelings and it definitely just mindlessly repeating the extremely popular male bashing perspective the majority of fediverse users blindly accepts as dogma, but it’s also undeniably true. A very large number of us are creeps. If you’d like to get technical, we can pull sexual crimes stats of men vs females and see which number is larger… But, do we really have to?
And it’s not that we’re inherently evil or perverse by nature. It’s that, more often than not, in one on one interactions we are the ones with the potential ability to physically dominate and coerce the human of the other sex. Every once in a while a man will delude himself, snap, explode or give in to whatever dark urge was brooding in him and use that ability in some horrible way.
The probability of an individual of whatever demographic doing something horrible is = (the probability they have the urge to attempt the horrible thing) x (the probability they have the capacity to carry out the horrible thing). It’s really not that complicated.
And If you think women would never do this if they had, on average, larger body frames, more strength and were brainwashed into seeking validation through dominance from an early age, please allow me to introduce you to the fascinating matriarchal pack dynamics of the spotted hyena, where females are larger and stronger than males. Guess which sex is more aggressive and socially dominant?
It’s not that us men are evil. It’s that on average, we have physical power that more often than not, woman do not. Any form of power has the potential to corrupt, cause it can be used for evil and therefore, every once in a while, given a large enough time frame or population, it will.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
You said “small numbers” first as the entire basis of your argument and now you pull the “feelings” card on me??!
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 11 hours ago
Since a small number of men are creeps, we give you the option to avoid all men". Which seems to be counterproductive.
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.
They know how many drives a customer has provisioned without incident.
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.
How is that OK?
Sadly, lots of things in the world aren’t ok. It’s tough out there.
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
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.
new_world_odor@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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 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.
searabbit@piefed.social 5 hours ago
Lyft already has this feature, it’s called women+
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
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 care about this” and “fucking creeps” is probably close to being two separate circles.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
Wouldn’t it be a single circle?
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
Hah, I typoed. Fixed now. I shouldn’t comment before I’ve had my coffee.
yucandu@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
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’m not convinced. Every guy I know has a story about women being creeps to them, but ask them if they reported it, every single one of them will say no.
And for the very few that do try to report it? They’re usually laughed out of the room. My own mother said “oh but it’s cute when older women do it to younger guys”. That’s not a rare opinion, that’s the default in our culture.
So we don’t show up in any official statistics, because our culture discourages us from reporting, and is less likely to take us seriously if we do.
So no, I’m not convinced that men being weird to women is the most common by any margin. We haven’t even asked men.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Man, that is not my experience at all.
I’m a guy. And even some of the things my (former) guy friends said about women and their relationships dropped my jaw. Same with some family.
The longer I love, the more I think “man… can my sex just not be such pricks? Please?” And is not even close to so prominant with women I’ve known, especially when I dive into the issues.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Hello. You now know me. I have none of those stories. Women have been nothing but respectful to me.
But if you’re comfortable sharing, I would love to hear your story about how you were harassed by a female Uber driver.
yucandu@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I don’t take uber or taxis. But I’ve had random women come up to me in public places and grab my private parts, or say sexually suggestive things, and it makes me feel kinda paralyzed, like a deer in headlights, cause what am I gonna do, be the guy that yells at a woman for sexual assault? And then I just never go back in that store for a few months.
Pudutr0n@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I’m a guy. I was harassed by a female uber driver once (I wrote about it here) and I also…
[sexual coersion trigger warning]
I was raped by a women while intoxicated a few years ago. It didn’t traumatize me heavily, but I definitely was raped. Would you like to hear about it?
I usually have positive interactions with women and appreciate the ones in my life, but just cause these things are rare doesn’t mean they don’t happen.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
That’s horrible. I don’t know how to do a spoiler tag, but let’s just say ; same.
So to stay on topic. Would you use a feature that let you not have women drivers?
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
That’s super awkward. Sorry you had to deal with that.
To stay on topic, would you use an option to not ride with women drivers now?
dil@piefed.zip 9 hours ago
The issue is they feel safer, yet woman are used to traffick other woman because they feel safer around them.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 11 hours ago
I think women drivers only wanting to pick up women is fine if thats what they want to do. That won’t negatively effect everyone else who is working. It only negatively effects your own potential at making your money.
But riders being able to select women drivers really takes a hard monetary hit against male drivers for the sake of being sexist.
Shirasho@lemmings.world 14 hours ago
No flak. I was gonna post the same thing. Women deserve to feel safe too.
NatakuNox@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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.
searabbit@piefed.social 6 hours ago
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.