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."

Comments

This will be fun

[rossz]

I can't wait until someone claims they identify as female and demand the right to rideshare with the all female service.

Re:This will be fun

[PopeRatzo]

Source?

You must be joking. You might as well have asked a golden retriever to solve a partial differential equation.

Re:This will be fun

[roman_mir]

OK, isn't it interesting though that the same type of service aimed only at white customers or only for a specific religion would cause a massive outcry and also would be illegal?

Re:This will be fun

[AnontheDestroyer]

Sorry for all the other Anonymous Cowards out there. This stuff is painful to read even as a cis-male (to use a term that will infuriate a few people).

That said, even as a very liberal person, I've always wondered what mechanisms are in place to keep assholes from screwing it all up. E.g., I don't know if there is a way to verify whether an individual has started the process, or if there even should be. I'm very uneducated in this area.

Re:This will be fun

[Crashmarik]

Some animals are more equal than others.

On a more direct note, did you expect integrity or consistency from people that define merit as meaningless ?

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

How about government stop telling people which bathrooms they can use on private property?

How about each restaurant, barber shop, and store decide on their own which customers they are willing to serve and which customers can use which bathroom?

Have we learned nothing from slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws, all government mandated discrimination? When will people realize that government shouldn't get involved in these issues?

Re:This will be fun

[ooloorie]

I believe people who believe in that kind of social engineering are applying some advanced math. They start with categorizing people based on overlapping criteria, such as sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. Based on these criteria, they classify people into "victims" and "oppressors". When people are both, they call that "intersectionality" and attempt to balance it out. Experts assign scores and weights. For example, white homosexual cis males have now apparently moved into the "oppressor" category.

I blame New Math and the attempts at teaching abstract set theory to budding sociologists for this.

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, isn't it interesting though that the same type of service aimed only at white customers or only for a specific religion would cause a massive outcry ...

For certain definitions of "massive outry", true. But it's hard for people to argue their own discriminatory actions "for security" (ie safety) and then simultaneously argue that a woman-only service is somehow not okay. So, the people left are those that (1) think women can and are as bad as men and/or (2) think fundamentally this is no real sort of solution to a more fundamental problem (a lack of adequate background checks at Uber) that basically degenerates into "men are expendable".

... and also would be illegal?

And of course it's illegal. I hope they get slapped down fast and hard by the courts on this. Btw, I think it funny that impetus for this was a male Uber driver feeling threatened by a passenger. So, (1) we are now creating a service that makes it easier to target female drivers and (2) we're not even addressing the idea of background checks for passengers. So, entirely ass backwards.

Re:This will be fun

[LaurenCates]

From a medical standpoint - while acknowledging that being trans is NOT a disability - it should be illegal to ask.

That having been said, people fuck shit up for other people all the time. My father was a diabetic and had a handicapped placard to hang from his rear-view mirror because of problems with his legs so he could take advantage of handicapped parking. Generally speaking, you'd never know just by looking at him, though to observe him moving, you might notice there's something wrong with him, but because he didn't have a cane or a wheelchair, wouldn't you know it that someone would come over and confront him about fraudulently using a placard like the one he had, and wouldn't quit harassing him about it, either.

So, yeah, the problem here is the grey area that exists when either a lie could be told, for reasons good or bad, or people are untrusting enough to assume the worst and make accusations before understanding the gravity of the situation.

But that requires a lot of inappropriate unpacking of personal information to complete strangers...which is why I think all-female ridesharing (unlike handicapped parking) is simply a bad idea. It just sets up a lot of unnecessary drama in an age where the lines of gender are blurry, but there seems to be a continuing assumption that a not insignificant number of men are potential predators. These two issues, when taken together, are a powder keg of potential conflict.

Re:This will be fun

[x0ra]

Btw, it is worth to mention that Jim Crow laws were passed by Democrats... just sayin'

Re:This will be fun

[frovingslosh]

A quick scan of local on-line arrest records shows a majority of blacks committing violent crimes even though the black population is a minority. So the next logical step will be a white only version of Uber. Just for safety purposes, of course.

Re:This will be fun

[ewibble]

I know you disagree with this and so do I. I would like point out that blacks are more likely be arrested for the same crime, and given a harsher penalty.

However I have heard similar statistics for males and violence. Men are more likely to be arrested for domestic violence even if they where the ones that called the police in the first place. I am sure that it is much less likely that a man would report violence against him committed by a woman. Women also have a tendency to pick men that stronger than them as partners, it is hard to physically intimidate a person stronger than you. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in the US 76.8% murder victims are men, I pick murder because it is unlikely to go unreported. Although this could also be perpetrated by men, mens lives are clearly more dangerous.

While we continue to assume men are somehow bad, and are so dangerous, it is fair to not even let them into the same car as a woman just because they are a man we will only alienate more men. This will only cause men to dislike women more. I am sure black people where considered somehow bad, or somehow somehow worse than white people. That was racism them and this is sexism now.

If you want a "safer" uber service then you can have a service that does security checks on all its customers, and drivers. That way you are judged on your previous actions, not the genitals you where born with.

Re:This will be fun

[ShanghaiBill]

By the same token, female police officers are 5 times more likely to resort to using their firearm, and their partner is twice as likely to be hurt on the job.

Source?

A quick Google search will bring up several citations that female cops are less likely to shoot. But I could only find one citation from Ann Coulter that women are "vastly more likely" to shoot. I suppose that counts as a negative citation, since if Ann Coulter claims something is true, it usually isn't.

Re:This will be fun

[Maxo-Texas]

Why can't small males avail themselves of the service but to female MMA fighters who could whip the males in a fight can? Small males get assaulted, bullied, and even raped as well.

Re:This will be fun

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Real Christians who made a Christian-preaching cab service would probably prefer non-Christians.

It's against what Jesus said to harm non-Christians. You are to lead by example of being kind. That's what most of these hardcore Christians don't seem to understand about theeir own religion.

Re: This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Because what someone does as a part of their morning routine has nothing to do with ride sharing.

Re: This will be fun

[LaurenCates]

This is true, but in the name of liberty and personal privacy, it should, frankly, be none of anyone else's damn business.

If you're transgender, good! Live your life! If you are happy, and you're not doing anything that hurts anyone, congrats, you're probably well ahead of at least half the human population.

However, absolutely NO ONE should have the authority demand "papers, please" on that particular condition. Thus, it presents a problem when any male-presenting man asks for a ride in a female-only rideshare claiming to be a pre-transition MtoF and the woman driving says "hold on, prove it". How do you do that without creating a situation where the woman won't feel threatened (by a potential liar) and the man won't feel discriminated against?

The answer's simple: don't create a situation where discrimination is implicit within the ground rules.

Re:This will be fun

[markdavis]

>"That's what most of these hardcore Christians don't seem to understand about theeir own religion."

That is because most so-called Christians really are not very Christian. They don't follow the teachings and examples of Jesus, but instead follow organized religion, dogma, and related politics. And they also tend to look at the mostly supplanted old testament for answers to questions that are more easily answered by that famous and simple saying "what would Jesus do?"

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you assholes ruining this site? Go back to Reddit.

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

As a straight, white, born and gendered male, and human oriented person (compared to furies?), I'd really appreciate if ladies would stop going around putting the fear of men into everyone's heads. If you're concerned for your safety, take a martial arts class and learn some personal responsibility (don't expect someone to help you when you cry for help, you need to learn how to help yourself. In other words, stop being a victim and man up. By not punching that guy who grabbed your ass, you're choosing to stay a victim. The slight natural strength benefits of being male is nothing compared to a couple basic self defense classes, often offered for free to college women.) Segregating people like this only leads to more issues as people stop seeing others as people when they're always kept apart. They lose respect for each other. What this service tells me is that all the people using it are too emotionally weak to be around men regardless if that's true or not. I'm sure some of those creepy males will love this as they can now order a ride and know they will get a female driver. I suspect its far easier to kidnap someone when you're not the one doing the driving.

Yes, I've had my ass randomly spanked and my nipples twisted. Differently not a common occurrence, but I also didn't ignore it.

And please, no bullshit about how the media only portrays females as sex objects. Every kids show has ball smashing as something funny. All males in computer games are tight-muscled, super alpha males. Males are shown as bumbling idiots anytime a female is around. We're either a sexy crime lord or a fart loving failure at life. Etc... The media is simply for anything that triggers an emotion in its viewers.

Re:This will be fun

[AK Marc]

There are some who deliberately go to bathrooms to rape people (though fewer of them than republican senators, even though there are far more trans people than republican senators).

I thought that most of those who go to bathrooms to rape people were Republican senators.

Re: This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Because women are valuable, men are expendable. Didn't you get the memo?

Re:This will be fun

[dryeo]

Considering that the blacks were quite poor, the best move was not to piss of your white customers. Too expensive to have extra bathrooms and counters? Just ban all blacks from your business,

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Because an equal amenity is made for men. There are no places where you can legally have a bathroom for women and not provide facilities for men.

Re:This will be fun

[roman_mir]

But claiming that there's something wrong with the idea that a targeted class would prefer not to be targets is just disingenuous crap.

- you are very clearly missing my entire point, which is - there shouldn't be any special protections by any government for any special group and with that in mind it must mean that if an individual wants to set up a company to serve only women, he or she should be able to do so. If an individual wants to set up a company to serve only white people, he or she must be able to do so. If an individual wants to set up a company to serve only Muslims, he or she must be able to do it, etc.

Hypocrisy or not, it is illegal to set up a company to cater to a group defined by sex, religion, race, physical ability (to exclude certain types of disability), people go to court because of these ridiculous laws every day and it hurts the economy obviously, but most importantly it hurts the freedom of an individual to discriminate and everybody must be able to discriminate freely if they wish to do so and suffer any type of societal consequences (but not be prevented by any laws).

Re:This will be fun

[Goetterdaemmerung]

Actually, the bathroom issue is also generating outrage. For an example a college in New York has removed all gender identification from bathroom doors.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/29/gender-bathrooms-cooper-union-college-new-york

My home bathroom is gender neutral.

Re: This will be fun

[AK Marc]

When you identify as a male to your wife and family, and identify as a female only at sports events, it's obvious that you don't identify as female, but are doing so at a point in time for some other reason. Nobody is telling you that you aren't properly identifying as something, but that when you do so inconsistently, you shouldn't be treated the same as someone that is consistent.

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'll have those niggers voting democrat for the next hundred years" -LBJ

Re: This will be fun

[BarbaraHudson]

OMG We're supposed to wear socks?!? :-)

Re: This will be fun

[BarbaraHudson]

No, it's illegal because you can't use statistics to discriminate against a class of people. That's why police profiling, etc are against the law. Far better to require a barrier between the front and back seats if you are that worried, or just a video record of everything going on. Or use a real taxi service that does its job without regards to sex, handicap, etc and won't refuse to pick up a woman if she's with a man.

Re: This will be fun

[BarbaraHudson]

How is this safe if a woman and her date/husband/son have to split up because it's women only?

Re: This will be fun

[BarbaraHudson]

Smell. A transsexual women smells like a woman once the hormones kick in. Testosterone and estrogen make men and women smell different. Even your dogs can tell the difference and behave differently once you start. Of course, postmenopausal women will run into problems ...

Re:This will be fun

[stealth_finger]

You cut your dick off. Don't blame the rest of us who are sane.

Men and women think different, that's an indisputable fact, our brains are just wired different. With all the myriad of things that can go wrong during child development is it really beyond the realms of belief that a female brain can develop in a male body. Nothing to do with sanity.

Re:This will be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

As a trans woman, I'd really appreciate if dudes stopped trying to fuck stuff up for us.

Well good for you but as a man who doesn't go around sexually assaulting women I'd really appreciate it if people didn't discriminate against me on gender so it sounds like both of us can't always have what we want.

Re: This will be fun

[harlequinn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: This will be fun

[karmatic]

You seem to believe that transsexualism is a mental disorder.

It is, and it shares a number of characteristics with Body Dysmorphic Disorder. It tends to describe symptoms (rather than a specific underlying etiology), though there is a reasonable amount of information that suggests that in some of the cases it's related to disruption of the prenatal testosterone washes in the womb, leading to desires for behaviour (and identification) often seen in the other sex. In animal models, this tends to manifest as behaviour such as male rats exhibiting female mating and nesting patterns.

A conflict between one's brain and body will cause problems (something seen even in individuals in supportive environments), which makes it a disorder. Likewise, it's situated in the brain (as the body itself is generally in line with the chromosomes) - the brain improperly rejects the body in which it's housed. That's a mental disorder.

The American Psychiatric Association

Rather than pointing out that your argument is an argument from authority, I would point out that the APA does not get to define whether or not something is a disorder. Homosexuality (for example) didn't magically become "not a disorder" in 1973. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes political lobbying, and despite being a professional body, there is a lot of politics in play.

There are a significant number of individuals pushed into transition unnecessarily (particularly in the butch lesbian community), and there are plenty of cases where people would have been better off without transitioning. It's a very high price to pay for many people, and while it may be worth it for some, that is not always the case. Rushing people into it with "it's not a disorder, it's all normal, and healthy, and right" is not a good thing. It's a serious process to be undertaken when the alternative is worse.

Re: This will be fun

[LaurenCates]

Well, if you're going to tell me that women "can't" have this service (even though what I said is "it's not a good idea"), and then in your last statement say:

"And as for actual trans-people or other women who look completely male I'm sure they're grown up enough to handle awkward situations."

Well, women aren't grown-up enough to handle themselves? Where's the line supposed to be drawn here?

And as for my example being "convenient", well, I'm a test engineer. I spend my paid time creating problems where systems are likely to fail and game out the consequences of those failures. Are they critical? Are they catastrophic?

My question is, this is the sort of thing that we fight our first-world culture wars over in this day and age, that being, which is more important: the rights of personal information to remain completely private (that is to say, is it any of your business or authority to police me for what I say I am if to you it is completely irrelevant - in which case, any Catholic who doesn't believe homosexuals should be married should stay quiet on the grounds that no one is going to make them marry anyone gay) no matter how I present myself in the age of people being "genderqueer" (a concept which I have my problems with but I defer to my former point on the matter - you do you) or the rights of women to "feel safe", despite the fact that the concept of "feeling safe" cannot be quantified in any way, and therefore, the effects of which may impinge on the liberties of others (such as the integrity of personal information to remain confidential).

If you don't see a problem here and dismiss a potential problem as a "convenient" example to disprove my point, well, all I can say is you must be a lawyer and a licking your lips over the influx of discrimination suits that will come your way when my "convenient" example is used by someone to fuck with someone else.

And, lest you think no one would actually DO that to tweak the nose of the system, need I remind you, and readers of this site, that there was a story posted here not too long ago about a woman who went to court so that she could wear a colander on her head in her driver's license picture because she was an adherent to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Not that I think anyone SHOULD do that (I recall that I called this woman an idiot for doing that), but that does not by any stretch mean that no one WILL.

Re:This will be fun

[William Baric]

Statistics show society is safer for women than for men.

Re:This will be fun

[RKThoadan]

However, Matthew 5:41 says "And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." [ESV]. This refers to the law at the time where a Roman soldier could require someone to carry their gear for 1 mile. Odds are very good that whatever that soldier was doing it probably qualified as sin. This seems to be a pretty clear case of assisting someone in sin. To me a possible distinction is whether the "sin" would happen without your assistance. In the case of the soldier and the gay wedding it's going to happen regardless of what you think, so I think the answer there is that you should bake 2 cakes.

Re:This will be fun

[Archangel Michael]

The world isn't fair. I'm sorry if attempts to make it more fair are sometimes applied inconsistently.

Efforts to make the world fair, are by necessity also unfair. Thus, creating a greater imbalance than leaving it alone, as is.

Discrimination against non-whites has been, and continues to be a massive problem in society.

Discrimination says more about the person discriminating, than the person being discriminated against. Additionally, trying to make things "fair", creates its own sets of problems, which are equally unfair. Like when a 4.0 Asian student can't get into University, because we have to make room for a 3.5 student from the inner city, because white people are racist. But we don't ever talk about it in those terms.

As such I have no hesitation about banning services that are for whites only.

But you're okay discriminating against men? Asians admissions in university? Women who don't want men, pretending to be women into the women's bathroom?

BTW, the best way to defeat discrimination is for you not to discriminate, period. You cannot control others, and attempts to do so will necessary discriminate against someone else.

Take for instance, the Rooney Rule in Football. It was a very well intentioned effort to get more black people into coaching positions in the NFL. However, those efforts may in fact, be making things much worse for black coaches. Because it leads to cases were coaches are interviewed, repeatedly, and passed up and get stigmatized as "not head coaching material". The leads to coaches being hired and not being a good fit, and then having to leave after a very short tenure, reenforcing the idea that "blacks can't coach". Which is absurd. In the end, it doesn't help, and may actually be more harmful than natural course.

Discrimination by women has never been a problem except in the imagination of men's rights activists,

Except in Family Court, where the woman almost always wins, regardless of who the better parent is, who the kids want to be with etc. And there are other examples, we just chalk them up to "Patriarchal society" and "male privilege"

I have no issue with a woman only service giving woman a ridesharing service where they feel safe from harassment.

I have no issue with a whites only service giving whites a ridesharing service where they feel safe from blacks (jews, mexicans, muslims, Christians ...) .

Of course you don't. You're just as bigoted as the KKK, you just don't realize it.

Re: This will be fun

[karmatic]

If that causes you difficulty in functioning in society, or makes you want to amputate healthy tissue, then it would be.

Legality

[PeteJanda]

/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.

Re:Legality

[LynnwoodRooster]

To SJWs, off-color jokes are a microaggression - they ARE an attack.

Re:Legality

[oakgrove]

See? You just made a joke. And it wasn't half-bad even for you. Learn from this experience.

Re:Legality

[Solandri]

For those who don't/can't see it, basically these people are saying that because some men are guilty of assaulting women, they will generalize that stereotype to all men and prohibit them entirely. In one fell swoop they've legitimized stereotyping, discrimination based on stereotypes, and gender profiling.

To me, the acid test for any potentially discriminatory practice is simple algebra. Instead of a race or gender or whatever, replace it with a variable. Then apply the same formula to all other situations you can think of. This eliminates any personal biases you may have. "A taxi service for women" becomes "a taxi service for x". Substitute anything else for x. x = men. x = wealthy. x = whites. x = blacks. If any of those seems discriminatory, then the entire concept is likely discriminatory.

That is what you get when you apply the absolute binary standards of discrimination the PC crowd has advocated. If you apply (IMHO more sensible) looser standards which take into account real statistical differences (which may coincide with certain stereotypes), then services like this become allowable. If the rate of male on female assault in taxis greatly exceeds the rate of female on female assault, then there is justification for a service like this. But to get to this point, you first have to admit that men and women are different. Something the PC crowd has assiduously denied thus far. Otherwise you have no basis for generating separate statistics for men vs women in the first place.

Re:Legality

[AmiMoJo]

A better solution that doesn't involve any discrimination would be to simply vet the drivers better. Uber want to avoid doing that because it makes them look too much like a taxi company with employees, instead of just a pure ride sharing service that doesn't have to abide by the rules. The rules which were put in place to stop this sort of thing.

Re:Legality

[Firethorn]

One thing that taxi drivers don't want getting out is that for the most part:
1. Assaults by taxi drivers are fairly common as well.
2. Taxi drivers are often vetted about as well as Uber drivers - many of the companies use the same background check service Uber does.

Now, I can't make universal statements because there's thousands of taxi companies, but I think Uber is getting a bad rap from sheer size and being a good target for news articles.

Re:Legality

[russotto]

What's next, female only shopping malls because the sexist pigs might look at a glorious woman with lust?

Now there's an idea.. "Honey, can you come shopping with me?"... "Sorry, the mall just went woman only, remember? Why don't you go with Helen instead?"

Re:Legality

[tsqr]

You're not being discriminated against: there are plenty of ride-sharing services that you can use. Just not this one.

Congratulations - you've re-discovered the principle of "separate but equal". Somewhere, Jim Crown us smiling.

Re:Legality

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm Johnny Cab!

Password patent pending?

[Nkwe]

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....

[ericdano]

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.

Re:So....

[Tablizer]

Because the Web Way is to organically explore alternative ways of doing bullshit.

Much better arguments

[Etherwalk]

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.

Nice solution there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scores of women have reported assaults by Uber drivers

Good thing that a woman could never assault another woman.

As if...

[x0ra]

women on women rape/sexual assault didn't exist...

Re: As if...

[jklovanc]

Or in real life

Re:Totally illegal

[magarity]

You're kidding, right? There are plenty of women only businesses. Isn't there even a chain of gyms called Curves? That's women only, but I don't think too many women get molested at gyms.

Re:This is just what we needed

[Blue Stone]

Well the insteresting dilemma is - is it ok to say you, as a female, don't feel safe being driven by a male, given that some males may pose a threat, while it's genrally thought not ok to say you don't feel safe being driven by a person of a certain race/religion (eg. black/muslim)?

Re:i dont understand

[Crashmarik]

can you imagine the screams of complaints if there was an all male ride sharing service?

Especially if there was sexual assault going on.

Re:Anti-Discrimination and Hate laws are stupid.

[AutodidactLabrat]

Wrong. Under the commerce Clause and the various Acts of Congress in support thereof, Congress absolutely has the power to regulate business between the states (even if it is just a mailed check).
Well settled, discrimination in employment, public accommodation, housing or services is simply illegal.
Notice that Universities are not public accommodations.

This is really a bold business move

[thecombatwombat]

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.

Safety Issues?

[KermodeBear]

"We want to show there's inequality in safety in our industry,

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.

Re:Safety Issues?

[Snufu]

and the presence of guns can turn a Very Bad situation into a lethal one.

Re:Safety Issues?

[blindseer]

That's not a bug, it's a feature. A very bad situation is a women getting raped, the scum getting away, and the woman reporting the attack to the police. A lethal situation is the woman reporting the death of that scum to the police. While I will not wish death upon anyone I hope God may forgive me if I don't shed a tear for one more rapist killed.

Re:Totally illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the few ones that actually makes sense.

That club doesn't exist because of rape or sexual assault at regular gyms, it occurs because women don't get treated well at normal gyms. Some of that is just the testosterone and the lack of skin covering clothes, but a lot of that is from women being jerks to each other whenever another woman is getting attention.

I was very briefly employed at a gym years back and even the female CEO of the chain told us to not talk to the women and to go find somebody that was visibly older and or unattractive so that the other women wouldn't complain about beautiful women being given too much attention.

It was rather sickening, but it wasn't surprising, women can be real cunts when it comes to better looking women or the perception that looks get anything.

"Ridesharing" or taxi?

[pereric]

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?

Re: Totally illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no issue with women only gyms. My issue is with women who would deny me the peace and lack of drama in a male only gym, while still defending the need for female only gyms.

Stupid

[MBGMorden]

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 . . .

Apparently JC laws were against Business Interests

[thewolfkin]

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.

Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that whites were the Chosen people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that blacks were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to whites. Pro-segregation politicians gave eloquent speeches on the great danger of integration: the mongrelization of the white race. Newspaper and magazine writers routinely referred to blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles reinforced anti-black stereotypes. Even children's games portrayed blacks as inferior beings (see "From Hostility to Reverence: 100 Years of African-American Imagery in Games"). All major societal institutions reflected and supported the oppression of blacks.

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.

New Geek Ride Service

[EEPROMS]

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".

Re:New Geek Ride Service

[thegarbz]

What a stupid idea. You're just going to alienate potential customers who will feel threatened by their drivers.

I will start a ride sharing service where the drivers have advanced knowledge in emacs alone, and potential customers need to show they aren't vi users before they get on.

Can we see the stats?

[JustNiz]

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.

Re:How is this not gender discrimination?

[Locke2005]

How is the Girl Scouts refusing to accept male members not gender discrimination? And yet nobody has a problem with it...

Re:The assumption being...

[Locke2005]

There is a HUGE gender bias in the enforcement of domestic violence laws, to the point that a woman can do anything they want to a man, but if the man defends himself, he goes to jail. Yes, I too have a problem with people perpetuating the myth that domestic violence is something that men do to women and children, with the fact is that violence is something that people do to people, Personally, I have never assaulted a woman, but I've been assaulted by women on multiple occasions, and police never pressed charges against the woman. That being said, there is ample legal precedent for starting businesses that serve only women and are staffed by only women, so I suspect the safety argument would be considered sufficient grounds to justify discrimination in this case. Also, even though they are using only female drivers, they are STILL running exhaustive background checks on them! Not sure what they are doing to blacklist violent customers...

Re:So is it now okay to have men only

[Locke2005]

Men-only clubs still exist in the US. Ever heard of a fraternity?

Re: Apparently JC laws were against Business Inter

[countach74]

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.

idiotic

[slashmydots]

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.

German railway introduces women-only carriages

[Bender Unit 22]

German railway introduces women-only carriages.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Something is going the wrong way.

Sue 'em to death

[MitchDev]

Discrimination against men.

The law works both ways, bitches

How can they claim safety

[pastafazou]

And then turn around and make all their drivers female?