Safety or Discrimination? – Uber’s App Allows Women to Ride Together

Safety on Uber rides has been a growing concern for both passengers and drivers, particularly for women. Now Uber has taken a step in the right direction by allowing women passengers and drivers to exclude males from their rides using the company’s women-only feature on its online booking app. But some men are not happy with the decision.

The Washington Times reported on Monday (March 9) that Uber has expanded a women-only option in its online booking feature that will be available to passengers and drivers across the United States. This option allows women passengers to choose women drivers available in the area and also women drivers to choose female passengers. Trips can also be booked in advance with these preferences to avoid long waiting time.

Uber made this option available nationwide over safety concerns held by both women drivers and passenger after incidents of assault or violence on non-gender-specific rides. A sexual assault case in 2023 particularly damaged Uber’s reputation and cost the company over $8 million in compensation to a woman who was raped on an Uber ride. Reportedly, the number of such sexual assaults on female passengers and drivers is in thousands.

The women-only feature was launched in a few cities in California and Michigan last summer, then extended to over two dozen cities across the U.S. in November. In a free country, it makes sense to let people choose who they want to hire for a ride by mutual consent. But then there is always someone complaining of being left out and the discrimination card is tabled.

So it happened with the Uber women-only option as two male Uber drivers from California tried to stop this feature by filing a lawsuit against the company last November alleging that it is discriminatory to men. The lawsuit argues that women drivers are in minority, about a fifth of the total number of drivers with the company, and yet they get the entire pool of passengers to choose from via this feature. And male drivers have been denied this right to choose in an act of gender-based discrimination.

We don’t know the politics of those offended by Uber’s women-only app, though liberals are predominantly the ones to use the discrimination card when it comes to issues of gender, race, language, and other variables. In Uber safety issues, immigration status also counts. The left wants illegal aliens to have the right to stay and work in the United States regardless of the threat to the native-born population. In September 2023, the New York Post reported on such a threat to New Yorkers from illegal immigrants working at Uber Eats using the loopholes in the company’s identity verification procedures. The story cited a former Uber eats worker calling it a potential for disaster:

“Illegal working using borrowed delivery apps is a significant security issue, as we go inside peoples’ homes.”

When Uber took measures to tighten its security against illegal aliens working on stolen identities, liberal media was offended and depicted Uber as a betrayer. Los Angeles Public Press published a story last summer to hail “undocumented drivers” that helped build Uber and Lyft but were now being left out. The story wrote:

While Los Angeles boasts the nation’s largest rideshare market, the immigrant drivers who helped build it are increasingly banned from earning a living through the apps they made successful.