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

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

#271

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #256
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than their argument being a joke, you are misunderstanding the argument. > What should a woman in this position do? Look at the options and think to herself, "I could choose a woman driver, but I won't because that is discriminatory to men and I should accept the risk"? Nobody has argued this. This is a straw man you constructed so you can knock it over and claim victory.

Then create a better man. What are those claiming "sex discrimination" suggesting women do? Clarify. I'm happy to accept a better model. Correct me, please.

Well, obviously women should use this filter to discriminate for their safety. That's related to, but beside, the point others are making. Others are referring to Uber's policy, irrespective of the decisions made by their individual customers. (I mean, maybe some others are saying stupid shit, but there's at least some smart shit one can read, too.)

The policy for Uber to add this filter is a problem because it means they put a bandaid over the issue instead of solving it by being more strict in their hiring. Adding this filter means, to the corporate brain, they've "solved" the problem and therefore need to spend no more money on it. Frustratingly, that seems to be in a way which perpetuates the problem, when Uber could otherwise train their employees (whom they could also interview prior to hiring...), and even take appropriate action against the ones who act against their policy.

It's worth noting that tavavex went over this in their reply to your top-level comment; their point had never been that individual choices made by women are the reason this is a bad policy. In fact, a good summary of the more reasonable negative sentiment was included at the end of said comment:

> The checkbox itself is fine by me, but it's just them [Uber] taping over an issue that stems from the way they do business.

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

#272

Post by dchftcs »

foxyv wrote: post #241
dchftcs wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impact of false accusations don't start just with prosecution. People lose jobs and friends with it before that stage. I've personally seen people fired for a mere police investigation into something much milder that was eventually dropped. Also, I did some checking and I can't find sources supporting "100 cases per year". Various sources say unfounded allegations are estimated to be 5-20% in different research,…

This is why we need unions. You can be fired for chewing gum too loudly or just being around when the boss is pissed off. We need to band together to defend each other against malicious employers. With regards to the 100 cases per year. I was using UK statistics for false rape allegations. Ironically, men are more likely to be raped by other men than be investigated for a false rape allegation. > Can't people take pr…

I don't think denying a ride to a stranger in a sketchy situation counts as being nasty. If it's not false accusations, it could be a knife at your throat or whatever (your example about male rape definitely doesn't help your case here).

Let's have a thought experiment.

If we take the prevalence of false accusations be several thousands a year (the lower end of the estimate), it would be between 1 to 2 incidents per 100k population in the US. For your UK statistics, I can't find a citation either - in terms of prosecuted cases you're perhaps right, again the buck doesn't just start with prosecution. Reported rape incidents can be up to 70k and prosecuted incidents is less than a tenth of that, and it's probably similar for false accusations - what I can find is an estimated prevalence of 3%, so in the UK it would be up to 2.1k among reported (not necessarily prosecuted) cases.

Incidentally, 1 to 2 per 100k is in the ballpark of rape statistics in low-crime areas, such as Hong Kong, Japan or Singapore. So the risk of rape in those areas is similar to the risk of false accusations in the US.

With this in mind, if a woman denies a ride to a strange man in Hong Kong in the middle of the night, does that mean she was nasty to the man? If you say yes, it's probably not the prevailing sentiment in those areas; if you say no, perhaps that can point to some cognitive bias.

For unions, sure let me know when you're able to set them up. Similarly, you can tell women in Hong Kong or Singapore to not worry about rape because you're going to do something to make the world better for them. But another important nuance is that unions won't help as much as you think they would. In the case of false accusations of pretty much anything, a lot of the damage is social, for people who are not already powerful; rape is an especially touchy topic that you would find fellow union members, especially female members, and sometimes spouses, to be less than sympathetic.

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

#273

Post by dchftcs »

mmooss wrote: post #217
dchftcs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So could a car accident, but you still drive. There are lots of risks in the world; they need to be assessed by their likelihood x damage.

It may be surprising to you, but I don't drive (I don't live in the US, but even when I did I didn't really have to), and there was a period of time I resorted to not even taking taxis because a crash in those times would have been much messier than just myself dying. But my own private life aside, driving, to many people, is a necessity, sometimes even for survival, while lending a hand to a stranger, however nobel that may be, is not.

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

#274

Post by belorn »

atmavatar wrote: post #248
belorn wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In places where unisex bathrooms is the norm, it not that uncommon to see men's only bathroom while the other rooms are unisex. Is that discrimination?

Yes. I'm rather curious where this is actually the case, particularly as you claim it's not uncommon. My experience has been the opposite, though I'd hardly claim it to be representative. My prior employer had all single-occupant, unisex bathrooms originally, until one woman high up the management chain demanded there be women's only bathrooms. So, a women's only placard was placed on a couple of the unisex bathrooms…

If I generalize a bit for Sweden, small restaurants and shops generally only have a single bathroom. Fast food restaurants, schools/universities, work places, and train stations tend to have one or two large single-occupant unisex accessibility room and several smaller single-occupant unisex rooms. Airports, high-end restaurants and shopping malls tend to use US style of single-sex bathrooms. Tourist areas, venues for people to drink, larger gas stations, and bus stations often come with a urinal room for men-only, an unisex accessibility room, and one or two smaller unisex rooms.

The larger accessibility room is also for parents with small children.

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

#275

Post by lucyjojo »

thrance wrote: post #240
avanticc wrote: post #235

The shift toward Waymo mentioned in the comments is a perfect example of how 'low-trust' environments drive automation. People aren't just choosing autonomous vehicles for the tech; they’re choosing them to remove the human variable entirely. If a platform like Uber can't guarantee safety through its vetting process, the market will naturally move toward solutions that eliminate the need for trust in the first place.…

And then this automation contributes in turn to this "low-trust environment", removing one more human interaction from your day and further erroding the social fabric. Taken to the extreme, this only ends with everyone completely isolated and talking to AIs all day, like in Asimov's The Naked Sun . Not really my preferred vision of the future, tbh.

meanwhile japan has special train cars for women only.

you gotta stop thinking "low/high-trust" everywhere you put your eyes on.

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

#276

Post by ottah »

thrance wrote: post #238
lordfrito wrote: post #100

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 g…

> How long till "I don't want a black/white/gay/etc driver" options show up? Slippery slope fallacy. > "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." — George Orwell, Animal Farm Women being harassed by Uber drivers isn't a necessary part of life, and wanting to address this issue isn't equivalent to literal Soviet communism . This quote is waaay out of place.

Playing devil's advocate, but can you justify discriminating against an entire class of people, because of the actions of a subset? Part of the reason for protected classes is not to be reduced as an individual to the perception of the group.

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

#277

Post by ottah »

traderj0e wrote: post #265
thrance wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long till "I don't want a black/white/gay/etc driver" options show up? Slippery slope fallacy. > "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." — George Orwell, Animal Farm Women being harassed by Uber drivers isn't a necessary part of life, and wanting to address this issue isn't equivalent to literal Soviet communism . This quote is waaay out of place.

It's really not a long slope when you look at how racial discrimination already happens, and the differing crime rates there

I'd say that history has already established that this discrimination is likely as it has already occurred before.
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