this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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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 disingenuous as hell to pretend that men being weird or sexual towards women isn’t the most common by a colossal margin.
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. That's not guarantee nothing will happen, of course, but it is more unlikely when all parties know Big Uber is watching you.
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?
Large numbers of men are creeps, and I say that as a man. That's the issue, that's why they're doing this.
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.
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.
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.
Right, but is this the best way to address this, by telling women "All men are the same, they will harass you, they can't help themselves. So here, click this button and you will never have to pick one up?"
Best? Maybe not.
But until the underlying social issue gets resolved, it's a solution to address it.
It's also one that could be utilized alongside other protections for women, or as a stop gap to get to a better solution.
They still will need to work out other ways to empower women to terminate a ride (both as driver and passenger) without penalty AND to ensure the passenger is let out of the vehicle in a safe place. Along with better reporting, investigations, and consequences for those who do harass.
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 accept 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 women 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.
It's just true, we believe this stuff because it's true.
What is true, specifically?
Oh yeah, definitely true.
You said "small numbers" first as the entire basis of your argument and now you pull the "feelings" card on me??!
Well, yeah, this is the same type of shit that is used to denigrate Muslims, or trans people, or any other marginalized group. "Some of them are violent, so we won't trust all of them!". I don't think we really want to go there, much less with half the human race.
You dont think that or you dont feel that?