Are there many assaults on uber passengers because they are white? Are there many assaults on uber passengers because they are women? There is your answer.
the fact that skin color can be a proxy for socioeconomic factors does not change the statistics.
Do you investigate why a rapist has raped someone and then ignore it if the reason is socioeconomic factors?
If applying your logic on skin color leads to discrimination then maybe it's discrimination even when the discriminated party is males.
It doesn't but it contextualises them. An inability to recognise that is a signal.
Have you seen any correlation between socioeconomic factors and perpetrators of sexual assaults?
Recognising that one group commits the majority of certain crimes isn't the issue, as you said it's just stats. The issue is entirely in ignoring other factors.
The driving factors do exist though in the case of race which make filtering by it unacceptable. SA is common across race, socioeconomic status, etc. There are certainly some argument for some cultures encouraging beliefs that make it more common for them no argument here.
That said filtering out drivers of a certain race is unlikely to make any difference in your risk profile where women filtering out men is likely to make a huge difference in their risk profile.
Your average woman subjects themselves to a spectrum of sexual harassment ranging from cat calling to approaches - or even worse - by just leaving the house. Imagine them in gyms in workout clothing, or night club dresses in locked vehicles. If the solution is to limit what they wear, we're part of the problem
It's one of the relevant factors. It, and related facts, make it usually possible for a man to overpower a woman (and a predator self-selected for being somewhat above average in fighting ability might be confident of overpowering multiple women, or at least being able to get away in the worst case), which has implications for safety.
Typically? I mean sure, those spaces exist, but the typical "leftist space" is usually still drenched in rape culture, maybe with some pretense of not being so (ending up as a bad experience for everyone except the self-important people running it).
A similar uncomfortable reality exists in rightoid spaces where theres hemming and hawwing at articles like this being blindly misandrist, despite the evidence and statistics on a societal level that men overwhelmingly commit more acts of sexual violence on strangers and deserve higher even segregation (its not even close to the same ballpark), but alas, they flee the consequences and promote a culture that critiques their legitimate and statistically backed reluctance to participate (like this thread). Despite the name, cherry picking isnt that fruitful of an activity.
You realize your argument works double well for black people right? This is the textbook misandry I was talking about. Bigotry based off statistics is what we call stereotyping. Also, sexual violence against strangers is nothing in comparison to violence perpetuated by people you know.
The difference is the business structure. Women's only gyms are operated as private clubs, and must follow a very strict set of laws.
Uber is a public accommodation. It cannot discriminate based on sex. If someone wanted to start a private club where women joined to drive and be driven in a not-for-profit way, that would also be legal.
Honestly, thank you. I and many of my other friends have had this happen so much that we don't even react beyond an eyeroll, empty stare, or slight look of contempt for the perpetrator, when we tell each other the stories. I've had a ten minute drive in an unfamiliar city feel like an hour because a brief moment of conversation turned into a man repeatedly asking for my number, explicit details about where I live (not just the city, but the neighborhood, streets and even using phrases like "How can I find you if I visit?"), and my social media accounts. He did all of this despite clear, polite and repeated declinations towards his requests. He said things like "I'd like to be your friend" and further "I'd like to get to know you", and despite being firmly and clearly told, "No, thank you," each time he continued onward until the moment I stepped out of the vehicle. He was not subtle. It was very direct, and his tone sounded more and more frustrated as he persisted.
For anyone reading who has not previously considered it, please imagine what it feels like to be in a moving, locked vehicle you're not in control of, in an unfamiliar place, with someone who is much stronger and taller than you who's not respecting your verbal boundaries. What guarantee do you have it will stop there? What could happen if I truly upset him? How much more unpleasant could it become for me? Meanwhile, I'm paying for this. Even with the option, I'm still paying with the extra time I willingly choose to wait.
Considering that 90% of sexual abuse in Uber’s safety report was committed by men, it seems disingenuous to frame this as some unreasonably discriminatory “oh they just want to have their own space”.
In places where unisex bathrooms is the norm, it not that uncommon to see men's only bathroom while the other rooms are unisex. Is that discrimination?
I'm rather curious where this is actually the case, particularly as you claim it's not uncommon.
My experience has been the opposite, though I'd hardly claim it to be representative. My prior employer had all single-occupant, unisex bathrooms originally, until one woman high up the management chain demanded there be women's only bathrooms. So, a women's only placard was placed on a couple of the unisex bathrooms, and suddenly, guys had to semi-frequently wait on for the remaining available unisex bathrooms during the day.
It was very clearly discriminatory, and I have no problem claiming the reverse would be just as bad.
If I generalize a bit for Sweden, small restaurants and shops generally only have a single bathroom. Fast food restaurants, schools/universities, work places, and train stations tend to have one or two large single-occupant unisex accessibility room and several smaller single-occupant unisex rooms. Airports, high-end restaurants and shopping malls tend to use US style of single-sex bathrooms. Tourist areas, venues for people to drink, larger gas stations, and bus stations often come with a urinal room for men-only, an unisex accessibility room, and one or two smaller unisex rooms.
The larger accessibility room is also for parents with small children.
Yes unless there is almost same amount of male only bathrooms. As member of most hated minority I can accept that there is correspondingly to population less bathrooms. So 51% of bathrooms should me female only and 49% of them should be male only.
this is actually an interesting problem for building designers, because the "fair" scenario of equal space for each ends up in too few female restrooms (assuming a natural split of clientele) because the men get urinals which can be packed in like sardines, the women don't.
Even if you go "fair" and have the same number of drains regardless of size you often end up with lines for the women.
Most large place compensate by putting in way too many toilets on average or just hope there isn't a crush-time.
The best place to see this in action is at a stadium with 50/50 fans during half-time or other break.
Are you saying it's not acceptable for a woman to choose a female driver over a male driver for a sense of her own safety?
Deep breath in... There are two types of discrimination. Paraphrasing Thomas Sowell, let's call them Type I and Type II.
Type II discrimination is the evil awful kind we rightfully rail against. It is "treating people negatively, based on arbitrary aversions or animosities to individuals of a particular race or sex..."
Type I discrimination is of the broader sort; "an ability to discern differences in the qualities of people and things, choosing accordingly." We run our lives with this kind of discrimination: is this food safe to eat? is this activity safe to participate in? do I trust this person given what I know about them?
>> Ideally, Discrimination I, applied to people, would mean judging each person as an individual, regardless of what group that person is part of. But here, as in other contexts, the ideal is seldom found among human beings in the real world, even among people who espouse that ideal. If you are walking at night down a lonely street, and see up ahead a shadowy figure in an alley, do you judge that person as an individual or do you cross the street and pass on the other side? The shadowy figure in the alley could turn out to be a kindly neighbor, out walking his dog. But, when making such decisions, a mistake on your part could be costly, up to and including costing you your life. [1]
This kind of discrimination is what we're talking about. I'd venture that not only is it OK, it is necessary. In this case, men that have had no background check, and whose form of employment is as an Uber driver are more likely to harass women (or do worse) than a female driver. Allowing women to make a selection based on this likelihood means that female customers that are alone can make choices to still use the service while reducing the overall risk.
Mitigation of this risk in normal taxi services take the form of background checks, bonds, and a chain of responsibility running from employer to employee to customer. It places more risk on the employer deliberately. Uber deliberately chooses to avoid this risk and responsibility. That choice is baked into their business model. That means enabling this kind of discrimination from their customers is a required feature of the service.
[1] Discrimination and Disparities, by Thomas Sowell
> Allowing women to make a selection based on this likelihood means that female customers that are alone can make choices to still use the service while reducing the overall risk.
I'm failing to see how anything you say could be used as a guideline to pick between "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination.
The major distinction you draw between "Type II" and "Type I" is the fact that one is fueled by "arbitrary aversion" which is not a particularly useful distinction.
What if I denied entry to black people from my bar because ""they commit more crimes"" and ""are more likely to break stuff"", is it morally ok? Why not?
My opinion is that no, it's not ok because the majority of people punished were never going to behave in an uncivil way.
The same logic can be easily applied to this situation. Are men more likely to behave sexually inappropriately (which ranges from verbal harassment to assault)? Sure.
Is it the majority? Hell no, it's nowhere close.
(Of course it's worth nothing that the "majority" does not necessarily have 50.01%, it's just an arbitrary line you can draw as long as you are consistent about it)
The point I took away is that since the normal methods of "ok discrimination" are not available and Uber refuses to do the needful on their behalf, women should be able to "use the big gun".
The reality is that if Uber rapes are an issue, and something like this is not allowed, women will just stop using it entirely.
Or special Uberpods will be developed where the driver is completely encased and the passenger has a "auto drive to police station" button.
If someone is presenting themselves to you in person for entry into your bar, you have far more information to make a judgement on than the color of their skin... so it is not the same.
In the case of a woman coming into contact with some driver and volunteering location information like her home address, she has little to no information to make that judgement. Providing her just that bit of information, and allowing her to discriminate based on it, makes her safer. Ideally, she'd have way more information than just whether the driver is male or female. The reputation information helps, but isn't always reliable.
>If someone is presenting themselves to you in person for entry into your bar, you have far more information to make a judgement on than the color of their skin... so it is not the same.
So the difference between "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination is the amount of information on which the decision is based upon?
Logically then uber could add a "white only" option, "no queer" and "no leftist".
(of course this is arbitrary but you can easily come up with a reason why: if you split any group of real people in two it's only natural that one group has an higher incidence of a negative trait)
This also has a second problem: what if we let the passenger know not only the sex but also if the driver ate fish in the morning (and hundreds of other useless facts)? Does that make it discrimination because they have far more information?
I guess not but then how do you decide what information is valuable in order to decide if there is enough information to judge the individual instead of going off statistics?
How can you say that our theoretical racist patron is in fact racist and not going off the only valuable information?
No, that's a question.
I imagine it's not that since the rest of my comment is dedicated to pointing out how that'd be racist.
I was trying to make you explain what exactly the difference is since you didn't clearly define it in your reply.
Uber is also the one deciding to offer a rideshare service where mens are banned for working for them. Uber has the choice between vetting their employees and doing discrimination based on a correlated proxy. They choose the latter, and this discussion is about whether that is legal.
If an employer did the same thing, would you argue that's also not discriminatory? Or, to pick a notorious example, if a cake shop only agreed to sell to straight couples, would that be the same? If not, why not?
These platforms connect service providers and consumers. That should be obvious, I think.
A better challenge would be if these same platforms allowed racial selections. Which I think everyone would be uncomfortable with in a way “let women avoid men” does not evoke.
Probably because of motivation. To my knowledge, there’s no evidence of racially motivated bad behavior on these platforms, but there certainly is for gender-based bad behavior[1]
So the apparently-similar hyptothetixal is not that similar, though still useful for rhetoric.
My libertarian view on discrimination (independent of the Civil Rights Act) is this:
If a service is not widely available in the region, any systematic discrimination leading to refusing to provide service, or specific level of service or care, based on anything unrelated to the ability to provide it, should be illegal, locally, in that community. Rules like ousting disruptive customers apply across the board.
If a service is widely available, however, then “x-only” service providers should be allowed to operate (as indeed they are with women-only gyms, Jewish-only clubs, or nightclubs that let women in first and charge the men) as long as they advertise it up front and not make people go there only to find out that “ladies can go in free of charge, men pay $300 for a table with bottle service”
PS: replace “ladies” and “men” with “whites” and “blacks” and hear how that sounds. And no, citing crime or violence statistics shouldn’t play a role in shaping whether people can get into places, whether it’s women citing male vs bear violence / harassment or people citing racial FBI statistics on violence / harassment. This is the prosecutor’s fallacy.
Yes, I think the argument that "discrimination is fine so long as it doesn't result in complete shutout of a vendor/customer" is reasonable. But that argument didn't fly for the cake controversy case, so society doesn't seem to agree.
In your cake shop example, the more accurate version would be some gay couples only agreeing to buy wedding cakes from cake shops with gay bakers.
On account of it's the customer choosing the service provider, albeit with the help of filters provided by an aggregator, instead of service providers denying service to customers based on their belonging to a class.
edit: I missed that you can, as a woman driver, also filter out male riders.
