A few problems with that:

* Couldn't a man identify as female, and then be in the perfect situation to find women in "less safe areas" who feel vulnerable?

* This would also allow men to request female drivers, are you sure that's a good thing?

* Only 14% of Uber drivers are female, so you might be waiting awhile for that ride...

> This would also allow men to request female drivers, are you sure that's a good thing?

The OP explicitly mentioned women-asking-for-female drivers, and not implying the inverse. That type of program is not uncommon for safety.

I don't remember Uber ever asking for my gender, just a phone number. How would they enforce that?

Given increased political scrutiny, I wouldn't be surprised if Uber/Lyft was compelled to do more rider-side verification in the future.

What political scrutiny of Uber riders are you referring to?

Not political scrutiny of the riders, but increased scrutiny of the companies themselves and their practices.

Then they’d have to start asking or find out from your docs

Unfortunately, I'm sure the ratio of male:female drivers is skewed for similar reasons -- I can't imagine many women would be comfortable picking up a group of drunk men from the bar at 2am on a Saturday.

I think female Uber drivers should be allowed to specify a preference for female passengers also. Uber drivers and taxi drivers do fear being assaulted by passengers.

What about allow a passenger to request a driver who has undergone a background check, US citizenship check, etc.

What's next, asking for a driver of a specific ethnicity? Seems just as reasonable as your request.

Far more women are sexually assaulted by men than by women, and I don't see why the law cannot recognize that. That's why we have separate bathrooms and locker rooms for the sexes and why college roommates in dorms are usually of the same sex.

Recognizing that also welcomes comparisons along other boundaries. Some racial minorities are over-represented in violent crime statistics. Without delving into biases potentially present in both your statistic and those, what would be the fundamental difference between allowing riders to filter by gender and allowing them to filter by race? Your argument seems like a justification for both.

I also don't know that sexual assault is the reason for segregated bathrooms and locker rooms. I was always under the impression that it was just a puritanical artifact from an older time. Unified bathrooms are becoming more popular; I am curious if that has had any impact on sexual assault rates.

It doesn’t really require comparisons across any other boundaries, but it might be at odds with certain feminist philosophies. However, making it optional seems like an easy way to please everyone.

The fundamental difference between filtering by race and filtering by gender is that one is by race and one is by gender. They’re not the same thing, and we don’t need to pretend that they are.

Separate bathrooms is most certainly not related to the Puritans, as we can observe equal or more bathroom separation across almost all religions and in all countries.

I don’t even think unified bathrooms are really becoming more popular outside the relatively small bubble that has been influenced by trans-activism. Even then, most of them are for a single occupant, which doesn’t really count, but satisfies everyone.

> They’re not the same thing, and we don’t need to pretend that they are.

They're the same in that you don't get a choice in either case before your birth.

You would be treating people differently based on something they have no influence over, instead of actually recognizing them as a individual who can make their own choices.

If you decide that discriminating based on race or sex (or anything else you're born with) is okay, you're starting down a slippery slope with a running start and no more obvious stops in sight. Best not to start with this at all.

> That's why we have separate bathrooms and locker room

I've never heard anyone claim this before, do you have any source or evidence to support this? Wouldn't that imply "family washrooms" or co-ed are hot-spots for rape? That seems like hyperbole.

The simplest reason would be for privacy between the sexes and keeping with a tradition of segregating washrooms that dates back to the Victorian Era. Before which, public bathrooms were male only, making things very difficult for women to be about in public. Thus the creation of female public washrooms was to allow them the same rights as men, not to prevent men from assaulting them in co-ed facilities.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/54692-why-bathrooms-are-gender-s...

Neither of those things are mandated by laws, afaik.

No, but single-sex bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorm rooms are not forbidden by law, and I think the law should not forbid people, especially women, from requesting a female driver.

we also use to have segregation by race, justified similarly to the way you are justifying sex segregation.

Uber already has this in the gulf states

Can't work anymore because these days nobody is allowed to say who is and isn't a woman. I could request an Uber and a guy could show up but we could both say that we identify as women. Who's going to touch that one with a 10 foot pole?

In the United States, you can't discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability, so this would be illegal.

Really? So, for instance, a woman in the US cannot specify that she wants a female gynecologist?