Lyft’s new feature lets women and non-binary riders request their driver’s genderlocked
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.
ITT: Men who don't understand the dangers of living as a woman.
I'm a passing trans woman. I presented as a man for decades of my life and have lived the last handful as a woman. But the amount of times I've been groped, harassed, chased or made to feel worried about my physical safety just for existing in the world has skyrocketed. Truly, I know what it's like to experience society both ways and without question it is worse for women.
I've had men sit next to me at the theater, put their hand on my knee and try to feel me up. Ive had men smirk as they "accidently" bump in to me at the grocery to squeeze my breasts. I've been followed to my car by men asking what I was doing tonight, who then started yelling and only left because I had pepper spray.
Like, srsly. Every single one of you saying this is discrimination have no clue what it's like to worry that any interaction with a man you don't know can quickly turn scary. Getting in to some random guys lyft who will then know where I live, while he has the ability to lock the doors is honestly a super vulnerable position to put yourself in situation.
Yes, mens wages will be harmed, but women are physically being harmed right now. Tell lyft to pay their drivers an hourly wage like they should anyways and STFU about a safety feature.
Couldn't broke drivers just self-identify as non-binary for more money?
they would get deactivated so fast though
Easy lawsuit
Thing is. Nonbinary must be allowed to mean literally anything in the way it currently is defined.
I am a man, I identity as a man. However, if I were to Identify as Nonbinary, that would need to pass - I might internally and externally be male, but if I say I don't identify with being male - it's sexist to deny me the right to identify that way - because identifying that way is not tied to a specific thing you do.
Or just get really bad reviews
I think a lot of straight cisgender men think that they understand the anxiety women and visibly LGBT+ people face in these sorts of situations. And maybe they understand it at some academic level. But they really don't truly grok it, and how it affects people's lives.
I'm a bisexual non binary black person. I do understand the anxiety discriminated groups face, but that's not an excuse to discriminate even more. We should look at the root causes of the violence and solve those rather than just discriminate even more and just let the issue get worse.
I mean I agree we should look into the root causes. But practically that is a long-term, society-wide project. We don't even know what the root causes are, let alone how to address them. And moreover that project is not one a ride-share company can address.
So we sometimes have to take less-than-ideal, but more practical measures to address the current situation, right?
I just learned a new word. Neat.
I don't doubt you had terrible experiences related to sexual harassment, and I'm sorry for you. Nobody deserve this.
But don't try to muddle the issue here. You have been attacked by people. And you decided that the pertinent group to understand these attacks is their gender, so we need to differentiate on this basis. You could have analyzed it along education level, wealth, apparent race, apparent religion, social persona, zodiacal type, car brand, profession, haircut, or anything else.
But you chose to judge the risk level of people based on their gender. Because you think that, for some reason, you have a much clearer perspective than other people you know litterally nothing about but their gender. It is the exact same thing that makes people discriminate others about the color of their skin, or wealth, or any of the illegal type of discrimination. You are using the same logic, and by extension, you are legitimazing it. There's a reason discrimination laws do a blanket ban of this kind of thing, and not "some genders/races/others are more protected than others" : it's because every use of every kind of this arbitrary categorization strengthen every other.
You would think someone who has surely faced so much discrimination would be less of a bigot.
Where are you from that all of this shit happens?
I'm not sure how blatantly enabling sex discrimination is going to help things here.
Well, then you are just being willfully ignorant because I already typed out why getting in to a cab is scary. Features like this are going to help women choose what type of situation they are putting themselves in. Say whatever you like about women being to use a gun/knife too, but assault and sexual assaults happen, the average man is stronger than the average woman and being in a confined space with a stranger is putting yourself at risk. Women are at a greater risk then men, so should have greater control how they handle those interactions.
"Why getting into a cab is scary" There. Stop right there. You nailed it. Thats it, that's the whole point. Getting into a strangers vehicle is scary. Period. The end.
Then Lyft should focus on driver quality rather than enabling blatantly illegal sex discrimination.
In what way is this illegal?
1964 civil rights act, discrimination based on sex. Pretty obvious case of it.
Is it illegal to choose your primary care physician based on gender? Maybe I'm not reading this entirely correctly, but why would it be illegal to similarly choose your ride driver by gender?
Wouldn't discrimination be more if Lyft refused to hire male drivers or something to that effect according to the civil rights act?
Because it's against the law, as it is written. It isn't a BFOQ for a taxi driver to be male, female, young, old, of any particular race or religion, so yeah, discrimination on those qualities clearly violated the law.
Preferentially encouraging discrimination against male drivers is still discrimination, even if male drivers are still allowed on the platform.
The customer is making the choice not the business. When you search for primary care physicians in most networks, you can search and filter by gender. Again, is this illegal by your insurance/network to allow this filter?
the business is preferentially participating in the customer choice
customer choice is also covered by the 1964 civil rights act, it's just nearly always unenforceable unless someone goes on a racist/sexist tirade
when insurance companies allow people to filter for male and female doctors, they're allowing people to prefer both options, so they're not preferentially participating in the choice like Lyft is here. And, there are medical specialties where one could argue that being either male or female was a BFOQ. Being a taxi driver doesn't involve one's genitals like being an obstetrics patient does. If you are using your genitals to operate your car, you're doing it wrong.
Fair enough.
It will be interesting to see how this holds up in the courts, whether they can argue it's in fact a BFOQ, or whether that actually applies here.
I'm waiting patiently for the first man to actually get this to court.
gets LOTS of popcorn ready.
I see. It's not like Lyft isn't taking on drivers who are men, it just allows women and enby pax the option to set a preference for women and enby drivers.
It would be interesting to see it argued in court that this constitutes as discrimination.
The analogy here is providing an option for a customer at a restaurant to select which race or gender they want serving them. Yes, definitionally, it is discrimination by sex. Especially because no one is given the option to pick a male driver, this will just result in women receiving more ride requests while they're active and driving.
I can't see how this would be anything but a slam dunk violation of federal law. Lyft is actively and obviously participating in discrimination on the basis of sex by enacting this policy.
What they SHOULD be doing is raising driver pay and enacting real protections for their passengers which do NOT violate federal law.
The fact that Lyft classifies their drivers as contractors rather than employees may allow them to get away with it.
I doubt it. Unless you think it would be legal for a company to preferentially contract with only white men, this would violate title II
That's not going to look good in the media cycle. Here's hoping you don't find the eventual plaintiff among the bigots in this thread.