For nearly two years, I have driven for Uber in the Greater Boston area. I have been eagerly awaiting the rollout of Uber’s new feature in my city that will allow riders to request me as a driver — well, not me, specifically, but someone who identifies as a woman, as I do. I believe this development will surely benefit my passengers who are women or nonbinary, and I have no doubt it will enhance my own peace.
I have driven men who said they wouldn’t get out of my vehicle if I didn’t kiss them or agree to a date with them.
Almost every day, I drive male passengers — men and boys — who say disparaging things about women in my presence, who ask me for my phone number, who rudely comment on my anatomy. I have driven men who said they wouldn’t get out of my vehicle if I didn’t kiss them or agree to a date with them. Fortunately, I am aware of my agency and use the safety features within the Uber app, and I’ve alerted law enforcement when necessary. But such misconduct would be awful in any workplace, to say nothing of it occurring in my very own car.
The New York Times, citing sealed court records, reported in August that “Uber received a report of sexual assault or sexual misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes on average between 2017 and 2022.” Most of the victims were women, drivers or passengers, and most of the perpetrators were men, drivers or passengers.
That’s a lot of sexual assault reports, and as the newspaper reported, the problem is “far more pervasive than what the company has disclosed.” Hannah Nilles, Uber’s head of safety for the Americas, who told the Times that “there is no ‘tolerable’ level of sexual assault,” said that 75% of the 400,181 Uber trips that resulted in reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct during this period involved conduct that was “less serious,” such as unwanted flirting, comments about someone’s appearance or profane language. She also said she expects future reports that cover 2023 and later to show the rates of “critical sexual assaults” to be lower than they were in 2017.
The same day the Times published its story, Nilles published a lengthy statement on Uber’s website in which she writes, “A recent article has made startling claims suggesting that Uber has turned a blind eye to the safety of passengers and drivers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Safety is a core value at Uber, and we have invested billions of dollars and countless hours to reduce safety incidents during trips, particularly when it comes to sexual misconduct and assault.”
Nilles says in that statement that “reports of serious sexual assault on Uber” fell 44% between 2017 and 2022 and that the approximately 400,000 rides with reports of sexual assault or sexual misconduct was in the context of 6.3 billion rides total, “meaning all of the reports amounted to just 0.006% of total trips.”
I took untraceable taxicabs as a young woman, so in many ways, ride-hailing apps such as Uber, which store data on drivers and passengers and track the rides, are a big step toward safety. Even so, Uber needs to take more preventive measures and improve its response protocols to ensure a higher level of safety for all. Pairing female passengers with female drivers is one meaningful way to allow women drivers and passengers to feel safer.
In July, Uber introduced its “Women Preferences” pilot program in the United States. Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco were the first three cities. The company announced last week that it’s expanding the feature into 26 new cities, but not yet Boston. Lyft, which has also had reports of sexual assaults, has also created a system it calls Women+ Connect, which also pairs women drivers and passengers.
However, a dual class-action lawsuit filed in California last week alleges that new features from Uber and Lyft connecting women drivers and passengers puts male drivers at a disadvantage. In principle, I believe economic discrimination against people based on race, class, gender or sexuality is anathema. Yet, the harm being inflicted on drivers and passengers because of their gender is what the new policies from Uber and Lyft seek to address.
By not being transparent about rates of sexual assault and sexual misconduct in the past, Uber put its profit over women’s safety. Now, male drivers who are signing on to the class-action lawsuit are doing the same: prioritizing their interests in making money so that it eclipses efforts to ensure that women and nonbinary people feel safe. Women have to swim against the tides of our assaultive culture every day. Women have to swim against the tides of our assaultive culture every day. It’s so pervasive that many us have become inured to it. Indeed, when I open my Uber app to accept a new ride from a stranger, I am not paralyzed by the possibility of being assaulted. I am petite, and if I allowed every possible threat to my well-being to stop me, I would never leave home. Through Uber, I have met lovely people from around the world, listened to the joys and sorrows of countless passengers and memorably transported a new mother and her newborn on their first ride home from the hospital. This side hustle works nicely with my full-time job as a teacher. Further, as a single parent, the gig economy is favorable, as I can make my own hours around my children’s schedules. To my delight, more than 900 riders have rated me a five-star driver, and because of Uber, I have never missed a rent payment. But as much as I enjoy driving and the possibility of meeting new people, sooner or later there will be the inevitable encounter with male passengers who disrespect me or trespass my boundaries. They try to force upon me a second-class status, even when I’m in the driver’s seat. A women-only function on a ride-hailing app is no threat to mankind, but it’s a small step for womankind, particularly in a world that rarely places a premium on our safety, well-being and comfort.
Kendra Stanton Lee is a writer and teacher in Boston who also drives for Uber. Her essays have appeared in Slate, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. For more of her writing visit www.kendrastantonlee.com. 
