Lyft is introducing a new feature that lets women and non-binary riders choose a preference to match with drivers of the same gender.

The ride-hailing company said it was a “highly requested feature” in a blog post Tuesday, saying the new feature allows women and non-binary people to “feel that much more confident” in using Lyft and also hopefully encourage more women to sign up to be drivers to access its “flexible earning opportunities.”

The service, called “Women+ Connect,” is rolling out in the coming months. Riders can turn on the option in the Lyft app, however the company warns that it’s not a guarantee that they’ll be matched with a women or non-binary person if one of those people aren’t nearby. Both the riders and drivers will need to opt-in to the feature for it work and riders must chose a gender for it to work.

  • Spendrill
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    9 months ago

    There’s at least three white people in there. My point wasn’t about race. The fact that there are a lot of non white people in that selection reflects the fact that taxi drivers aren’t that well paid and like a lot of poorly paid manual jobs there are quite a few immigrants doing that job. If we then extrapolate from what we know about sex offenders in society we can say that in any particular population there will be a number of sex offenders. Having said that, John Worboys, who is white, seems to be the most prolific of the bunch in there.

    They are, having omitted duplicating cases, just the first results for a search for ‘taxi driver rapist.’ Odd that there aren’t any women in the selection, no?

    • sixCats@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 months ago

      The links you provided seem to be UK centred, so it’s important to remember that in UK law a woman cannot be convicted of rape, only of sexual assault because under the letter of the law rape requires penetration

      Hence, if you compare male vs female rape perpetrators you’ll always get an overwhelming majority of men

      • Spendrill
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        9 months ago

        You’re technically correct about the distinction in law but I think the point still easily stands. Unless you can find me five women taxi drivers charged with sexually assaulting their passengers.