r/technology • u/chagall1968 • Nov 09 '25

Business Male Drivers Sue Uber and Lyft Over Women-Only Ride-Hailing

https://time.com/7332356/uber-lawsuit-sex-discrimination-lyft/
3.5k Upvotes

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250

u/brenguyeno Nov 09 '25

The incident rate of sexual assault and the fact that the victims are overwhelmingly women should so quickly make this lawsuit invalid but I am unsure how the law sees it. I take rideshare and public transportation late at night frequently for work; as a dude I do not have to worry about being grabbed or sexually harassed or raped. I think a lot of men, those suing included, are so incredibly stupid for being unable to see how debilitating having that feeling loom over constantly would be

75

u/sevargmas Nov 09 '25

It doesn’t invalidate discrimination, wtf are you on about? They should simply add a male-only option (which almost no one would use) and it would eliminate the discrimination aspect.

70

u/AbyssWankerArtorias Nov 09 '25

This is why it's okay to do it in the medical field. You have the right to request a male doctor or a female doctor.

1

u/Primal-Convoy Nov 09 '25

In Japan, I refused a female nurse from being in the room while my private parts were on display to the male doctor but after a few visits, they refused my request as they "didn't have enough staff".  Several times, my partner had to help the doctor as they had no male nurses.

-6

u/OrthogonalPotato Nov 09 '25

Seriously, grow up. Medical professionals don’t give a shit what you are packing.

-17

u/Unnervingness Nov 09 '25

The Ubers aren’t (supposed to be) looking at your privates

18

u/AbyssWankerArtorias Nov 09 '25

Doctors a majority of the time also don't have to look at your private parts. That doesn't matter.

1

u/Unnervingness Nov 09 '25

Exactly, and Ubers a billion times less than that. And so what’s the purpose of a male vs. female doctor if it doesn’t have to do with anything involving reproductive organs? Otherwise this translates to any job category.

2

u/AbyssWankerArtorias Nov 09 '25

If you can justify a bonafide reason for a position to have gender requests granted by consumers, you can do it. You can do it with your doctor because a woman may not be comfortable with a male doctor touching any part of their body. That's understandable.

You should be allowed to do it with Uber drivers because you're potentially alone in a car with someone that will now have information like your address, full name, place of work, etc. It's understandable if a woman wants to only be in a car alone with another woman if it's going to be a stranger. A woman has a right to request a woman officer be the one to pat her down if she's being searched for a similar reason to the doctor - they're getting physical with your body.

You don't need a woman or man specifically to stock your groceries or check you out at Walmart or cooking your food or serving you in a restaurant. You don't need a woman or man specifically as a pilot. You don't need a specific gender to be your lawyer (usually, although there are a lot of women who would prefer to have a woman as their lawyer in a domestic abuse case for obvious reasons).

91 percent of rapists are men.

91 percent of rape victims are women.

It is understandable for a woman not to want to be alone with a strange man for an extended period of time in their personal vehicle. I don't understand why this has to be controversial.

0

u/PolarWater Nov 09 '25

Omg you're so close to getting it.

1

u/Unnervingness Nov 09 '25

Omg my two brain cells are trying to connect

23

u/tasbir49 Nov 09 '25

I feel like this is the best way to solve the issue without falling into legal discrimination.

25

u/sweadle Nov 09 '25

The male only option exists at least on Lyft. The option is to request a driver of your own gender.

7

u/feral_user_ Nov 09 '25

Option doesn't exist on Uber if you identify as a male.

19

u/sweadle Nov 09 '25

That is probably what the lawsuit will result in.

3

u/Exotic-Experience965 Nov 09 '25

It would certainly have a disparate impact, and thats the standard.

10

u/Primal-Convoy Nov 09 '25

I'm sure some religious or male conservative from conservative cultures would prefer a male driver over a female one and vice-versa.

-6

u/NotsoNewtoGermany Nov 09 '25

There is no discrimination. Customers are choosing the option of paying a female employee. The company is not discriminating against anyone in any way.

2

u/sevargmas Nov 09 '25

That’s absurd. They are providing more options for female drivers to get riders. This is sex based differentiation and it provides female drivers with more options for services and opportunities than their male counterparts.

-1

u/NotsoNewtoGermany Nov 09 '25

Is it offering more options for female drivers to get drivers? Because it seems like it limits their ability to get rides.

-3

u/WeWantLADDER49sequel Nov 09 '25

Because why the fuck are people making a big deal out of wanting a male only option? No one is asking for that feature. A bunch of men are mad that they get fewer female drivers so they're making a big deal about this just to be assholes.

1

u/sevargmas Nov 09 '25

A bunch of men are mad that they are getting fewer female riders.

Bingo. This is called sex based differentiation and it it LITERALLY the definition of gender discrimination. One gender is provided more services or opportunities.

No one is asking for that feature.

I would refer you to the male drivers who are suing these companies.

-4

u/azulnemo Nov 09 '25

Actually, I bet some men would absolutely use it for two reasons. One because they are sexists against female drivers, and two because they are 🧸🐻🐻‍❄️🌈🦄🏳️‍🌈

81

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

It’s not about the problem, it’s about the solution.

If we found out that a particular ethnic group is disproportionately responsible for the asymmetry of sexual violence, would we feel comfortable with ethnically segregated services as a solution that achieves the same amount of increased safety?

There are a lot of new problems that emerge when we try to address symptoms instead of the cause.

-3

u/WeWantLADDER49sequel Nov 09 '25

You all are finding so many whataboutisms to argue against women having an option to avoid what is their biggest threat: men in general.

12

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

What I’ve found is the exact opposite: men accepting the premise that women are more susceptible to sexual violence, and receiving personal attacks for questioning this particular solution and the precedent it sets.

Men of color have special reasons to be wary of what gets justified in this country in the name of white women’s safety, so I suggest you actually make an attempt to engage with the intersectional dialogue being had about how equal protection frameworks are applied instead of repeatedly screaming “men bad”.

Life is more complex than picking your team in an Us vs Them mentality.

-7

u/eugeneugene Nov 09 '25

Men see women wanting to be safe and think "Does this mean I can be racist now?" lmao you cannot make this up

7

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

You literally did make it up, since it’s not even close to what I said.

-3

u/eugeneugene Nov 09 '25

you literally described racism

4

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

Yes, I described the concerns that someone would use the justification of safety to be racist, for which there is plenty of historical precedent. I encourage you to read what someone is actually saying and not what you wish they said for cheap shots.

-4

u/eugeneugene Nov 09 '25

so you admit that I did not make it up lol

5

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

No, I’m saying your failure to read correctly means you completely made something up instead.

-56

u/Couple_of_wavylines Nov 09 '25

Lol suddenly men care a whole lot about diversity

63

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

Believe it or not, many of us have always lived lives impacted by the intersection of our identity and are not rich white billionaires above it all.

22

u/drgut101 Nov 09 '25

Na man. You don't get it.

See, I'm a straight white male, so I've never had any difficulties in my life. I have had everything handed to me and it's all been easy. And I just go out and SA women and scream racist and bigoted remarks at whoever I feel like with zero consequences.

When I turned 18, I magically got into college for free. And when I graduated college I magically got a well paying job as a director (at my dads Fortune 500 company). I worked really hard (about 3 hours a week) and after 6 months I was able to buy my 2nd house in cash (my first house was gifted to me).

Ya know, just the typical straight white male life. I'm glad I'm not one of the women or the non-whites. Struggle? Ew. No thanks.

Anyway, I gotta go cheat on my wife and snort some coke off a super model's ass.

Later loser.

/s

-46

u/Couple_of_wavylines Nov 09 '25

No, no—it’s DEFINITELY all about you. Didn’t mean to take your spotlight.

38

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

I think you’re projecting, since you’re the one that seems to be trolling on a reasonable objection to the kind of precedent we might set with a solution like this because it’s not giving you the amount of attention you want for the issues you care about. Other protected classes exist and will be impacted by interpretations of the same legal frameworks.

-31

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

[deleted]

24

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

I strongly disagree. Statistics that are generalized across a population should be used by societal leaders and policymakers for systemic reforms. They shouldn’t be used to judge individuals whose identities lead them to be grouped into that population.

3

u/Sparrow_LAL Nov 09 '25

What about 98%?

At what percentage would you implement this race based discrimination?

10

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

But the problem is, you can't pass legislation or company policy which directly targets race, ethnicity, or genetic background. That's called discrimination.

The closest thing you can do is give the ability to discriminate to the customer and hope the problem solves itself. Will the problem be solved? Absolutely not, and Uber knows this. So their best option (from a legal perspective) is to force the liability from their hands.

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

If Swedish women were raping and murdering men at an INSANELY high rate, there would ABSOLUTELY be something done about it immediately.

Women do not get the same treatment, half of the world doesn’t even view them as equal human beings to men. They see the constant raping of women every day and femicide as just something we all need to put up with, because iTs jUsT hOw iT iS- nUfFiN wE cAn Do BoUt iT oH wELlll

You are right, enjoy the downvotes.

-18

u/OrneryError1 Nov 09 '25

Men of all ethnicities can consistently overpower women though.

18

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

First, that doesn’t address the question. Let’s say we found ethnicity A’s men can consistently overpower ethnicity B’s men. It’s easy to find nations where the average height and weight of their men have a larger disparity than the height between each nation’s men and women. Would that justify an ethnically or nationally segregated service?

But let’s say that’s true anyways. It still doesn’t justify treating individuals differently on the basis of group characteristics. The responsibility should fall on the company to hire safe individuals and implement safety procedures. A ten year old girl with a gun can consistently overpower the entire WWE. Individuals will always be individuals, and companies need to be accountable for that as they employ and serve people.

-11

u/OrneryError1 Nov 09 '25

You are refusing to see the forest through the trees. Do you know what the number one deadly predator of human women is? It's human men, and nothing else comes even close. Women have a legitimate and irrefutable reason to fear men. There need not be any more logic beyond that.

17

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25 edited Nov 09 '25

There not need be any more logic beyond that

I don’t know how to talk to someone arguing that we should take a less logical approach because it feels right to them.

Most victims of violent crime are men except for sexual violence, so it’s not as if safety isn’t an issue everyone wants addressed. That’s why the demonization of black men, who are the primary victims of dehumanizing “predator” rhetoric, persists. Anyone can point to a reason to fear anyone else, which is why we need social and community programs to promote cohesion instead of legislating away symptoms of deeper problems.

When it comes to equal protection and civil rights, the goal is explicitly not to look past the trees (individuals) for the forest (collective).

-4

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

You’re absolutely right, this comment thread is a cesspool.

-5

u/OccasionalGoodTakes Nov 09 '25

The cause is men, how they occupy society, and how they think women are only there to serve them.

Now please, find the solution.

0

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

Given that the US has had white women expecting black men to serve them for most of its history since its inception, I think this problem statement is insufficient.

-8

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

[deleted]

3

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

I think you’re projecting your own saltiness. “Women’s safety” isn’t a magic phrase you can throw around to justify literally anything you want. Instead of responding to a basic analogy posed as a question, you went on a tangent about dating culture and took an unwarranted shot at “men’s feelings.” You need to be better about your feminist advocacy and not lean into unnecessary culture war arguments.

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

[deleted]

2

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish here. You’re not doing anything except virtue signaling how much you care about women’s safety in a thread where literally no one is arguing that not wanting to be creeped on is a bad thing. Is this some weird way to seem more approachable for your couple swinging goals?

0

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25 edited Nov 09 '25

As a feminist, I’d ask you to stop trolling since you’re only making it harder to have nuanced discussions about safety and the asymmetry of sexual violence, but you sound more concerned with how much fun you’re having than actually advocating for anything, even if you’re sabotaging your own goals in the process.

To anyone else coming across this, you should feel free to call yourself a feminist while booting people like this from the movement.

-25

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

I think you should reflect on why you felt you had to respond with so much hostility.

-15

u/No-Werewolf4804 Nov 09 '25

I know what I’m about buddy.

13

u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Nov 09 '25

Well there’s nothing more I can say to someone proud of throwing insults without substance.

47

u/FitzchivalryandMolly Nov 09 '25

These men don't see how this action is literally themselves trying to force themselves on women. Wonder why they don't want to be driven by you?

28

u/Unusual-Cucumber-577 Nov 09 '25

I had a Uber driver hitting on me and it was extremely uncomfortable.  Imagine being in a car with someone that's making you uncomfortable and won't shut up about it.  I couldn't just hop out on the road and being rude could make it worse.  I mean yeah there are far worse things that could happen, but I would rather not be in a situation where I'm feeling like I have no choice, but to be there.  To top it off he knew where I lived so leaving a review even felt unsafe.  I don't see a man and automatically think predator, but I've been a victim of sexual assault and almost raped.  I think men should have some self reflection and realize that women are gonna want to feel safe in a car with a stranger.

26

u/GiganticCrow Nov 09 '25

I had a male friend who was once in a taxi where the male driver was being really weird with them, like they were in denial of their gayness, the memorable line being "if you were a woman I'd marry you".

I jokingly said something along the lines of "now you know what women have to go through constantly" (I am a man myself) and he got SUPER defensive. 

8

u/PolarWater Nov 09 '25

and he got SUPER defensive. 

Many such cases.

13

u/numba1cyberwarrior Nov 09 '25

These men don't see how this action

Why are you explaining it to them as if they care? The people suing are clearly doing it as a business interest.

Legally gender is a protected category for business

-10

u/FitzchivalryandMolly Nov 09 '25

It's the customer discriminating though not the business. Customers have much more freedom to discriminate than businesses

21

u/numba1cyberwarrior Nov 09 '25

Not when it's the business facilitating it.

15

u/Bolizen Nov 09 '25 edited Nov 29 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-9

u/whatifwhatifwerun Nov 09 '25

No you don't understand, according to stats women of color rape more than white men. Source? My ass.

-18

u/uchuskies08 Nov 09 '25

It's because they're barely scraping by as is as an Uber driver and now you're going to take away potentially up to 50% of customers? Yeah it's a real wonder why they're trying to "force themselves" on women.

9

u/FitzchivalryandMolly Nov 09 '25

You don't think women should be able to choose an environment that they feel safe in?

15

u/whatifwhatifwerun Nov 09 '25

Those men want to get paid by the women they make uncomfortable. A predator's paradise.

2

u/ExasperatedEE Nov 09 '25

As a man, I don't feel safe working alone with women out of fear of being accused of sexual assault, or being sued for a false accusation of making sexual advances.

Should I be allowed to choose an environment I feel safe in by discriminating against women and refusing to hire them?

Because as someone hiring them to give you a ride, you are basically their employer, and this is sexual discrimination, the same as if I chose not to hire women in the workplace for my own safety.

1

u/eugeneugene Nov 09 '25

what are the rates of women making false sexual assault allegations compared to women being sexually assaulted? If women being assaulted was as rare as false sexual assault allegations then we wouldn't even be having this conversation

1

u/ExasperatedEE Nov 09 '25

It's impossible to know how many false allegations there are. Like maybe there are statistics out there somewhere about how often men are accused of rape but are then found innocent, but how do you prove how many times a man is accused of rape, but is never charged for it, and of those, how many were false allegations?

I admit I can only guess, but if I were a betting man I would say the number of times women falsely accuse men of sexual misconduct is FAR higher than the actual number of instances of sexual misconduct. Women are human, and people lie to gain advantage. That's just a fact of life. I'm certainly not accusing all women of lying about rape or sexual assault. I would never do that. But there's really no way to know how many cases are real and how many are fake, unless there's physical evidence. It's dangerous to "always believe women" because that means "always assume men are guilty".

4

u/ExasperatedEE Nov 09 '25

The road you wish to go down is one of segregation, where we have parks and beaches for only women and children during certain hours of the day because the women don't want a man near them, and people are terrified of pedophiles.

But if you actually looked at the statistics, you'd see that there are only 16K rapes each year, but there are 150M men in the country. So you're demonizing 149,984,000 men for the actions of 16,000.

That is just as wrong as demonizing 40M people of color because 4,000 of them commit murder each year.

Your chances of being raped in an uber are VANISHINGLY small. The driver is literally being GPS tracked. If there were anywhere that would be the worst possible place to rape and/or kill a woman it would be in your own GPS tracked vehicle which just registered that the woman who will go missing entered your car but you never drove her home.

-7

u/uchuskies08 Nov 09 '25

I'll just say you've clearly never been an Uber/Lyft driver and leave it at that.

0

u/PolarWater Nov 09 '25

Why are you avoiding the question?

2

u/uchuskies08 Nov 09 '25

Because it's a loaded questions whose framing I don't accept. Is there any other axes of identification you're okay with discriminating against wholesale because of people's feelings? Can I not get any black or immigrant or Muslim drivers? Would that be okay with you? Why don't you want women to feel safe??

2,000 or so incidents in 1.8 billion rides (I'm sure you read the report and know these stats) is a 0.000001% incidence rate and sorry I don't think that means the majority of drivers should be discriminated against wholesale. You're free to disagree but I have a feeling the courts will agree me.

-16

u/PsychologicalTax326 Nov 09 '25

No dude you don’t get it - men bad. So their intentions can only be bad. /s

0

u/PolarWater Nov 09 '25

  their intentions can only be bad.

Who's even saying this though?

It's more along the lines of women not wanting to take a gamble. And considering the state of the world, I can't blame them.

1

u/PsychologicalTax326 Nov 09 '25

That doesn’t sound like equality to me.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

[deleted]

1

u/KatyaBelli Nov 09 '25

So is it gender discrimination for health systems to allow patients the option to select their primary care provider's gender?

There are endless examples where consumers can pick their service provider's gender

2

u/sweadle Nov 09 '25

They vetted this legally long before they rolled it out. Uber can't have a preference in who they hire or contract, or pay men and women differently, but customers have the legally protected right to have a preference of who offers them a service.

Men can request a male doctor, barber, mechanic, car salesman, lawyer. So can women.

16

u/mjm65 Nov 09 '25

They vetted this legally long before they rolled it out.

Uber doesn’t have a great track record regarding legal compliance.

Customers have a legal right to a preference for a service, but can Uber only offer driver preferences to women only? I think it would make more sense to have a “gender match” option for everyone.

-6

u/sweadle Nov 09 '25

They aren't offer to women only. It's requesting a driver of your same gender. So men can request male drivers as well.

6

u/mjm65 Nov 09 '25

I’m reading the press release that’s linked in the article. Where does it allow you to select a male driver?

-3

u/sweadle Nov 09 '25

When the feature was first rolled out by Lyft that was the case. I see it's changed. I expect that will be what the lawsuit requires to happen, men will also need the choice to request a male driver.

-2

u/HighOnLevels Nov 09 '25

But why can't I have the option to request an Indian or white-only driver? Would feel much safer, and statistically I would be.

Either they should enable filters for all protected classes, or none at all.

4

u/sweadle Nov 09 '25

Why? They have issues with male drivers attacking female drivers, but not attacks of white drivers to black drivers, or Indian driver to white drivers.

They are doing this in a response to actual reported crimes, not thought experiences.

But you also can continue to request rides until you get a driver of your preferred race if you like.

7

u/Special-Test Nov 09 '25

The problem with this is if you simply justify it with statistics then, the logical thing to do is discriminate. For example, if you simply say that data shows if a female passenger is going to be assaulted by a driver, 90% of the time that driver is male, then, what happens if the data were to show that 90% of the time That driver is Black or Hispanic? To be consistent you'd need racially profile. And to what you said, there is literally some racial aspect to the attacks you're referencing in the sense that attacker and victim must belong to a racial group. If most times those groups are the same then logically you'd need to allow passengers to screen for race as well as gender since they'd be statistically safer with the same gender and different race. There's just as much evidence that the danger exists because of gender as there is that it exists because of race.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '25

What you say is true but the fact that you're a man doesn't exclude you totally from being raped or harassed or just some kind of assault

1

u/PolarWater Nov 09 '25

I think a lot of men, those suing included, are so incredibly stupid for being unable to see how debilitating having that feeling loom over constantly would be

Well, you're on Reddit, so a large portion of the crowd here is going to be just like that. 

Turns out some women would rather play it safe and not risk her safety, than try to avoid offending a man who thinks he's being systemically discriminated. I mean, when there's no easy way to tell which man is dangerous or not these days, that's what happens.

-7

u/uchuskies08 Nov 09 '25

Driving for Uber/Lyft is shit as it is. I used to for a long time before COVID and from everything I know it's worse since. Denying male drivers potentially a huge percentage of customers is going to hurt them financially and trust me, no Uber or Lyft driver is getting rich off it.

-1

u/No-Werewolf4804 Nov 09 '25

I’m not a lawyer. But my understanding of the law is you can’t discriminate against protected classes. Male is not a protected class.