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All-Female Ridesharing To Debut In Boston (qz.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Scores of women have reported assaults by Uber drivers... Now Jenni Avins reports at Quartz that a ride-sharing service that only uses women as drivers, Chariot for Women, is set to launch April 19 in Boston, featuring more stringent background checks and additional steps to ensure riders correctly match with their drivers.... "[U]nlike other services, Chariot for Women features a patent-pending technology that will provide both users and drivers with a code after a request is made that will need to be verified upon starting the ride," reports Glamour. But "whether it's legal or not is a different question," says Joseph L. Sulman. Quartz reports that "According to civil rights lawyers, Chariot for Women's female-only policies could put it squarely in the crosshairs of gender discrimination lawsuits, which would be difficult to win." Founder Michael Pelletz says he welcomes the legal challenge. "We want to show there's inequality in safety in our industry," says Pelletz. "We hope to go to the US Supreme Court to say that if there's safety involved, there's nothing wrong with providing a service for women."
I can't wait until someone claims they identify as female and demand the right to rideshare with the all female service.
-- Will program for bandwidth
you're all ignorant hypocrites
2 Broke Girls should sue them...
/sigh/ Discrimination with a noble intent is still... discrimination. Would love to know out a ride sharing service exclusively for white bros who want a safe space for off color jokes would be received.
"where Safety is involved" would allow White Only businesses to claim blacks are more dangerous therefore..... .380 instead of a claim of privilege
Even Scalia would have shot this ignorance down.
Ladies, carry a
Really? The driver and passenger are each given a password / secret code in order to verify each other? This certainly has never been done before.
So instead of regulating Uber and other "ride sharing" services......they just create another thing with potentially the same problems.
Why not just cut the BS and just regulate Uber like we do Taxi companies.......like what should have happened a long time ago.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
There are some better arguments for allowing discrimination here than in most other cases, but ultimately those arguments will fail. While there is danger in taking an Uber, there is danger in *walking*, and the danger of taking an Uber is not very high. They are a "common carrier" and make themselves available to the public; they will not be permitted to discriminate in either employment (sex of drivers) or in who they are willing to transport.
Except that we know damned well that it would violate several laws, regulation, etc.
This country has a stellar history with segregated public transportation, something like this can only work for good. Yes not everyone can use it, but there are separate equivalent ride-sharing services available for those people.
Scores of women have reported assaults by Uber drivers
Good thing that a woman could never assault another woman.
women on women rape/sexual assault didn't exist...
can you imagine the screams of complaints if there was an all male ride sharing service?
Two can ride for the price of one.
This is totally illegal. The founder openly hopes that it will go to the Supreme Court and they will make an exception based on "safety". With that precedent, you could TRIVIALLY open an "all white" service too, or simply chose any factor that statistically results in "greater safety". It would also openly legalize discrimination in a much broader way than is legalized today.
Hopefully he gets shut down early, and appeals denied early, and we won't have to hear about this bullshit again. If this does go to the Supreme Court and / or is tolerated, you'll be creating a situation entirely indefensible by principle.
The sheer number of these sexual / racial discriminators being cheerled by the left is doing so much damage to our mostly-unified country that I am worried for the end results. While the right made serious progress on this issue (but is still of concern), watching the left fall into the same fucking pit at full speed (complete with logically useless arguments!) has me pretty scared.
A rapist need merely register as a trans and is guaranteed a woman is delivered promptly to his location.
They say they do "extra screening' but how much more can they practically do than Uber already does?
Also they mention no surge pricing - without surge pricing you aren't going to find many drivers working at times or places you want to go anywhere. Surge pricing may be annoying but it also attracts far more drivers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except in the case of Government which constitutionally cannot discriminate, laws which attempt to regulate how people regard each other will always fail. Eventually people wake up and realize that these laws are stupid and that in a lot of cases discrimination is rational and should be protected. Having male and female public rest/locker-rooms just makes common sense. A company having female drivers and catering only to female riders just makes common sense. Trying to legislate against common sense is stupid.
I have no problem with having male/female/whatever restrooms however. It's up to the owner of the property how he accommodates his/her/whatever customers.
If it's MY car I can decide who and what sex, color and/or what part of town I operate(period) Just as I can decide whether or not to work with a taxi service that discriminates. You can't fix stupid.
Edwin
coming from the drivers instead.
> Demands equality in the workplace and the home
> Creates all-female ridesharing service
Now lets create an all male ridesharing service and see how that goes over.
Such a great idea. Let's have white-only services as well. It could be even defended using the same 'security' argument since crime statistics clearly show that blacks are more likely to commit a violent crime.
over a quality as little overhead happiness Another about outside OpenBSD. How many Under the GPL. BitTorrent) Second, ultimately, we liitle-known
Preventing discrimination is SUPER important...well, unless it's helpful, right?
-Styopa
This is stupid. You could just provide the gender to the rider and avoid the whole issue all together. That was, women who feel more comfortable with women drivers are free to do so and the same can be said for men. Drivers could also be given this info, and if the match making is done well enough, the system would be more flexible while providing the same result to both genders. Say a male driver might feel more comfortable driving only males to avoid said issue.
inhale that funky zuckersnatch
...but to me this sounds like a "service" that paints a big giant "I'm so afraid of being assaulted I'll do anything" sign on its customers.
And on ANY female customers of other "rideshare" services, who happen to be driven by female drivers.
Basically, if you're a violent criminal and see a woman coming out of a car driven by a woman - you're seeing easy prey.
Regardless of YOUR gender.
Bonus points if you're a female criminal with a big, threatening boyfriend.
You just stop that gullible female who only trusts females and start up a conversation - while your big threatening boyfriend sneaks up from behind.
Same goes if you're the big threatening boyfriend whose girlfriend is up for playing bait.
Whoever the woman coming out of a car driven by a woman is - at least she has a mobile phone on her.
And she is SO AFRAID of being assaulted, she can't even stand to sit next to strange men.
Easy prey.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Will they cover drives on the clock but are open / looking for a fair?
In route to a fair?
This is not the first company to try this, what they don't say at least up front, is how tricky this business would be.
According to one in NY, She Taxis only 2% of drivers right now are women.
Will a lot more women flock to this job if they feel it's safer? It seems from a business point of view, these people are really banking on that being true. All law aside, it's an interesting experiment. I mean this dynamic comes up all the time in most conversations about gender disparity. "If we just got rid of all the harassment, there'd be far more women coders" is something I've heard plenty of times before. This is the closest thing to a controlled experiment we're ever going to see.
The legal back and forth on this will be interesting. I think I'll grab a beer and some popcorn and watch the carnage unfold.
As someone that leans heavily towards leaving the government out of my business and letting the market decide I will say that this is a brilliant business move and the government should just leave this alone.
I'm reminded of a an incident in my own personal experience. Due to a failing on my part to renew my license to drive in a timely manner I was required to take a driving test to get my license back. I scheduled a time for the test and went for a walk until it was my time. The "test" included a female DOT agent taking a ride in my car with me while I drove around the block. I had to make a proper lane change, follow signage and lights, and generally not screw up for maybe 15 minutes of driving. Now I was alone with this person and excepting that they had my name and address on file I wondered just how much they actually knew about me. Did they run a criminal background check? I mean convicted rapists get licenses to drive after getting out of prison. My test was near the end of the day and so if I just drove off with her in my car would they even notice until the next day?
I didn't even think of this until I had the woman in my rear view mirror. While driving I was more concerned about keeping both hands on the wheel at 3 and 9 while not screwing up to the point I wouldn't get my license. I also had to wonder if the woman even considered the threat of taking a ride in a stranger's car. I did think that if I had asked her this after my test just how creepy that might have sounded.
As a male in reasonably good physical condition, at 6' 5" tall, and about 200 pounds, I realize that I have much less to fear in the world than the typical female. I also realize how imposing I may appear to others. If a woman doesn't want to share a car ride with me then whatever, I'm fairly certain that someone will come in to make up for it since that is how a free market works.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Women would be all up in arms against us, saying it's sexist and what not. But it's totally ok when women do it because they have a vagina isn't it.
Want to fix your safety inequality because males tend to be stronger and more aggressive? Start carrying a pistol. Will it solve all problems? No, but being armed can prevent a bad situation from escalating to a Very Bad situation.
Love sees no species.
and 10 years in digital logic hardware design as the source of most of my modern angst and confusion.
Both Uber and this service seems to provide a service where you order someone to drive you somewhere, without that person actually having any errand of their own to that place. To me that's not "ridesharing", it's taxi. "Ridesharing" to me is when you intend to drive somewhere, and check if someone else wish to ride along. And share expenses like fuel and perhaps vehicle depreciation, but nothing more.
Just having drivers being independent contractors instead of employed doesn't make a big difference end-user-wise to me (well except a lack of quality control, as shown by Uber) - it's still functionally a taxi service. This service (with good intentions) seems to make it even more like regular taxi operations by also emphasizing background checks and such.
Have I misunderstood "ridesharing", or are the "ridesharing" companies just trying to change the word to use for their "sure-not-a-taxi" taxi service?
In my experience, it generally seems that discrimination in some form is acceptable unless it's a straight white male or his organization doing the discriminating.
It would be interesting to know who made these complaints to Uber and who leaked the Uber’s Zendesk screenshots. It would also be interesting to know why they leaked to BuzzFeed News instead of the police sexual assault unit. Might a good suspect reside at "Chariot for Women".
Would anybody like to comment on other countries where culture and law may make this more palatable?
The first that comes to mind for me is Japan and the women-only subway cars. I would like to ask if anyone knows more about the culture there and whether that rule could be extended in this way.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
services and places?
That no woman would assault another woman and no man would assault another man. I have personally witnessed two women who had been living together get into a major domestic violence situation with one another. Several people, myself included, called 911 to report it and the dispatcher (a women, btw) said, "Oh, it's nothing. It's two women." Uh...WHAT?!?!?
This whole thing is stupid and accusatory. Basically, the idea seems to be that if you're male, you're automatically suspected of being a rapist or mugger.
That's OK. If I want to use the service I'll just decide to identify as a girl (a really, really butch girl) for the duration of the ride. Just because I identify as a woman doesn't mean I can't wear short hair, a t-shirt/jeans, and men's cologne . . .
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I too would love to disregard discrimination laws when convenient.
You think without those laws that southern business owners would not have been racist?
You ignorant jackass. The reason they were made into laws is because many business owners would not abide by them as unwritten rules so the government stepped in and made it against the law to not discriminate. This is historical fact. Read some fucking history you stupid piece of shit.
----- ===== -----
Your premise is that without Jim Crow Laws businesses would have integrated smoothly without issue?
You're flat out wrong Anon. Businesses made them put those Jim Crows laws on the books because they weren't going to integrate otherwise. Read a book or something. You know what you n ever read about regarding Jim Crow? Any business that complained about having to separate black customers from white.
Sure the ministers, politicians and scientists all say black people are inferior but hey businesses don't care about that because even back then they were run by automatons who aren't influenced by social pressures and clearly only care about money and literally nothing else. /sarcasm.
I'll tell you what you find me ANYTHING that suggests businesses were open to mixing customers in the era of Jim Crow because I have read up on black culture and I've seen nothing to suggest any businesses were open to that much less many much less most of them.
Just another second banana
I've noticed African Americans ("blacks" for short) tend to be on the receiving end of a lot of abuse in Boston. I'm going to start a blacks only ridesharing service for their protection. And all black schools too. Statistics show its more dangerous for a black student to attend a school that has a lot of white (non-black) students, or if they don't, I think they can be made to show that shortly. We must keep the schools split for everyone's protection.
How many generations is it going to take to stop this shit? Or are the newer generations not learning anything from history?
There is almost never a thing as an absolute right.
But it will definitely be interest.
If the stats show more women are assaulted by men in these ride sharing services, there for it is a safety issue to have a women only service.
At first glance, it seems plausible, but the easy test is to just replace the criteria.
If the stats show more whites are assault by blacks in service X, is there a safety issue that would allow a 'whites' only service?
Discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to rather than on individual merit.
Now explain to me how is this not gender discrimination?
Many IT professionals complained they had issues with Uber drivers who ask inane technical questions once they found out their customer was an IT professional. This has lead to a new taxi service where all the drivers must have advanced emacs and vi skills thus helping their customers avoid having to ask the driver "have you tried turning it off and on again".
Without any actual stats to back them up, I'm far more inclined to believe that this is just more feminazi man-hating bullshit than the result of a real epidemic of rapist Uber drivers.
All-female services are sexist. They presuppose that all men are evil rapists, and then they go a step further to exclude them entirely. I wonder if a man applying for a job could file a gender discrimination suit when they tell him they won't hire him because he's a man.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
This is patently illegal in the US, though in this political climate they may get away with it.
Political correctness is all about getting special rights for special people, while denying those rights to others and forcing others to pay for the special peoples rights and benefits.
I'll tell you what you find me ANYTHING that suggests businesses were open to mixing customers in the era of Jim Crow because I have read up on black culture and I've seen nothing to suggest any businesses were open to that much less many much less most of them.
You need to read some more books, bud. Businesses want money. If some businesses would have actively discriminated while others hadn't, the former would promptly gotten out-competed and would have been gone. Only by government fiat can that kind of discrimination work. Get a clue.
Women are lousier tippers, as a rule. Also, if you are a taxi driver, a professional, and you work in location where you have to wait for the taxi calls, you really want both men and women as your clients.
All women service will be either more expensive, or less profitable, or less available because there are fewer female drivers. Statistically, female drivers make more accidents in the city driving (men cause less accidents yet they are deadlier) and, in the long term, insurance premiums will go up.
Further, as few already noticed. Discrimination on the basis of gender in unlawful. However, I don't think that men give a flying s**t about such all-female services.
Finally, if somebody needs an example, they should visit Hair Dresser - All Female service place. Prices are just obscene, from men's point of view.
In saner states, that would be doable. The firearm-disarming legislature all but precludes that from (legally) happening there.
Doesn't seem to stop criminals though.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The leaders of Boston have passed a travel ban against North Carolina over the attempt to keep women and children safe by keeping people with male parts out of the ladies' rooms...
Sex-based discrimination in the name of perceived safety is clearly completely impermissible in liberal Boston. How can they allow this in their own city while banning travel to other places that do similar things? Why are they not banning travel to cities (and other entire nations) where cabs (and restrooms and showers and locker rooms) are segregated by sex? (oh, yeah.... then they'd have to ban travel to all the super-wealthy Muslim nations that invest massive fortunes made on petroleum in big Boston-based businesses.
Nothing like leftist hypocrisy.
It doesn't matter what their reasoning is, you can't discriminate based on gender.
Female-only health clubs like Curves for Women are still in business. Girls Scouts still accepts only female members. Men-only clubs still exist in the US! Fraternities and Sororities are still gender-specific. Women can run women-only massage businesses. Sex workers can be selected on the basis of gender and sex... apparently it is legal to "discriminate" on the basis of sex and/or gender if you can state valid reasons to do so, e.g. for safety.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
While I agree with you that businesses are there to make money, and are generally willing to forego personal prejudices in order to undercut the competition, there is a flaw in your argument. It can be financial suicide to go against what the surrounding culture wants. For example, if a region is racist, it may be a competitive advantage in the short term to go against the grain by expanding your hiring pool or clientele base by hiring and serving the minority group. However, this is likely to upset the majority, as they generally dislike the minority. A boycott or two later and you're bankrupt. Now all of that said, I tend to agree with what I think your overall point is, which is that private enterprise generally does a better job of being inclusive of different people groups than governments.
You need a better citation than just "more books."
Ever heard of the term "personal responsibility." I don't go to the gas station at night with a wallet full of money without my taser and my pistol. If you live in some backwards anti-gun liberal shit hole that doesn't let you carry one, MOVE. At the very least get some pepper spray.
Assault? Did you mean compliment?
It would be much better and more productive to have an all non-Muslim ride service
What we need is NOT more gender separation, this time under the pretense of 'safety', but an actual fix that will bring safety without separation.
In other words - we need to go for the cause of the safety concerns - bad male behavior. This is not an easy fix because some areas of society is saturated with misogynistic attitudes, culture and traditions. This is made worse by the lack of consequence for men behaving badly, which easily can escalate into more rude and abusive behavior.
I can't say what the solution here is. A swift kick in the groin and a whack over the head may feel nice but I doubt it will have any long term effect on the rude behavior. Maybe we really need to directly outlaw catcalling and similar 'soft' abusive behavior, along with actual groping and similar invasive behavior, and punish with stiff fines and a stint behind bars.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
In Japan there are trains with sections cordoned off for female-only use, because skirt-up photo and other perverted kinds of abuse are a problem and ladies want to be safe. Thus, there is legal and enforcable precedent for voluntarily female segregation in a highly advanced democracy that is an ally of the USA.
I make enough money in my business that out-competing isn't really an issue. I have no desire to serve black customers, nor hire black employees (for a variety of reasons).
As a pragmatic matter, failure to serve them results in the law coming down on you. I don't want that. Societal backlash? Bring it on. I have no problem defending racism in in-person dealings.
I have little desire to deal with large-scale harassment from whining individuals on the internet who are not my customers, hence posting as AC.
German railway introduces women-only carriages.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Something is going the wrong way.
WHERE is the car? WHERE are we going?
Even if they WERE the ones. Black people WERE considered somehow bad. The genitals you WERE born with.
How the fuck do people keep fucking up these two simple words? "Were" and "where" don't even fucking sound the same.
Probably already got mentioned, but why not just a a feature to Uber to only allow female drivers to pick you up?
It's not that this idea of having a female only service is necessarily bad. But it's discriminatory at it's core. And could set a really ugly precedent. I've had a few female friends were assaulted either by family or lovers. So I can understand the PTSD and the need for this type of service. But this is an opportunity for companies like Uber and Lyft to step up their game and offer these features in their service.
I'm fine with that, but then don't call men only clubs sexist. Like here, for instance:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
And other points raised by this angry MR guy:.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Time to switch to public transit, because many of the Boston women drivers are aggressive, *and* clueless *and* flipping out emotionally when they hit busy traffic. The Boston men drivers are one or the other, never all 3 at once.
Yes, I drive in Boston and have for 30 years, personally and professionally working ambulance. I get honked at and rude gestures because I stop at stop signs, and because I wave people on, and stop to let people cross the road. When some idiot whips across three lanes of traffic on 93 to get to the exit they failed to read the stops for for the last 2 miles, it's *always* someone dressed and made up as a woman. And whoever's bright idea it was to put them all in SUV's and make them park in "compact" car spaces, I'd like to shoot.
Discrimination against men.
The law works both ways, bitches
Funny how this isn't an issue with taxi services. Only when you dick around with livery service laws does this become a problem.
I'll tell you what you find me ANYTHING that suggests businesses were open to mixing customers in the era of Jim Crow because I have read up on black culture and I've seen nothing to suggest any businesses were open to that much less many much less most of them.
You need to read some more books, bud. Businesses want money. If some businesses would have actively discriminated while others hadn't, the former would promptly gotten out-competed and would have been gone. Only by government fiat can that kind of discrimination work. Get a clue.
There are many examples of "the free market" having little or no impact in places with large scale behaviour that we now find repugnant. "Whites only" golf clubs were not out-competed by integrated ones for example, thus it in not "only" my government fiat that such things exist.
The founder of Chariot for Women admits to this.
This is about bringing general safety issues into the spotlight so that they’ll be taken more seriously. If this were rides for men only, then they’d just get slammed. But it’s for women only, ostensibly because of some safety issues that people know have a grain of truth in the backs of their minds. Nobody will argue against the fact that some women have been attacked, and the attacks were perpetrated by men. When this is challenged in court (because it is sexist, intentionally so, to make a point), it will receive a much deeper level of critical analysis.
Women are the primary population segment that still receives discrimination, often in reverse. I’ve seen instances where women (a minority of applicants) were actually preferred for jobs over men, despite some uncertainties, because the employees were mostly men, and the employer felt it was important to strive for gender balance, as long as they could be reasonably sure they weren’t hiring underqualified applicants.
Hootbers
And then turn around and make all their drivers female?
And no woman ever beats up or murders other people, 'cos it's only men you have to be scared of?
Sounds legit.
"We hope to go to the US Supreme Court to say that if there's safety involved" there is nothing wrong with waiving people's 1st and 4th amendment rights.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
You can't say that this proposed service is good and at the same time say that "transgendered people" can pick their own restrooms to use.
Give some proof you cretin! You're just trying to push your libertarian shit.
"Scores of women have reported assaults by Uber drivers"
And yet most of them don't result in convictions, because they're false. Women wake up with an attitude problem one day and suddenly that taxi driver who is refusing to give them a free ride has magically raped them through the power of the insane female mind.
I have an idea, let's just segregate women and men in society. You'd probably still see women accusing men they've never met of some kind of harassment. Eventually, "I dreamed it" and "I fantasized it" are going to be valid testimony in court as long as they get to put a man in prison for it.
Because whites feel unsafe when driven by non-whites.
For those too lazy to read, it's probably not going to hold in court and these geniuses may be in a world of hurt soon.
The plea system is often broken because they use it to give the appearance of leniency while at the same time throwing the book at you. In reality it's to save court-time.
Well, we're offering you only two year in jail if you plead guilty to minor crime X, but if you don't please we're going to f***'ing nail you with A through Z and if any of that sticks, you're looking at 10+ years. Feel like copying any MORE movies, punk?
Then minority passengers will find it much harder to hail a taxi.
I'm a guy. I tried to make an appointment with a gynecologist but she said she only accepts women patients. This is discrimination!
I'll tell you what you find me ANYTHING that suggests businesses were open to mixing customers in the era of Jim Crow because I have read up on black culture and I've seen nothing to suggest any businesses were open to that much less many much less most of them.
You need to read some more books, bud. Businesses want money. If some businesses would have actively discriminated while others hadn't, the former would promptly gotten out-competed and would have been gone. Only by government fiat can that kind of discrimination work. Get a clue.
I've read books, I've cited books. You're the one trying to spit that vague 'market forces fix everything' nonsense. Market forces would have said that keeping the black community enslaved was ideal because it minimizes your costs. Get outta here with that Anon nonsense.
Just another second banana