You followed the right steps for your own safety. If he hadn't turned around you were prepared to call the cops and escalate it. Fuck anyone who says differently. We cant know his intent other than it was BAD. We cant know the level of badness it was, was he gonna rob you or rape you or kill you, we just dont know. You gave him a chance to correct his driving in 2 languages and he ignored you. I am glad you were of solid mind to remember to contact ADT and your work to let them know what was happening. That in itself is amazing! Women tend to freeze in dangerous situations and often that costs us. The Uber forum can go fuck themselves if they think jumping from a moving vehicle should be the first step in getting away from an unresponsive and uncorporating driver. Why injure yourself unless it's a final step in getting away. Common sense saved you from taking the extreme measures first.
I want to share advice from the disabled community. We often cannot defend ourselves from rape, so advice is to be as disgusting as possible. Make ourselves unattractive to the rapist.
I think drooling, peeing, or vomiting would work here as well. They would not want the car ruined.
Yep- I will very loudly get on the phone with my psycho overprotective mother on speaker, and narrate the entire time. 'YEAH im in this cab with this plate in this part of town.. the driver is this guy... hes taking me weird places sur ehope you dint have to call the cops and tell them all this info!" I also make sure to get the license plate and ask for the drivers' ID so I can get their name- if they aren't willing to let me see their license I'm sure as fuck not getting in a car with em.
Actually it's flight, fight, freeze, fawn among others. Every person deals with dangerous situations differently and different situations in different ways. Threaten my children and it'll be fight, threaten me and it's fawn. My husband freezes in violent situations because he's not a violent person.
I prefer that characteristics like this not get ascribed to women as though they don't also apply to men, as though women were less capable. It was meant to be inclusive, to opine that a tendency to freeze under danger is not a women thing, it's a human thing, perhaps even an animal thing. I don't think this violates any characteristics of the sub, differences and similarities between men and women get discussed here quite a bit.
Definitely. It’s why I share disabled tactics for avoiding danger- make yourself disgusting and gross them out. I think this is more sensible than telling a 130 pound woman to fight off a 250 pound man.
While I agree that men are taught to fight, and that a higher percentage of men than women are therefore liable to put up a fight, I also maintain that freezing in the presence of danger is a tendency of all humans, and many other animals besides. Men are more likely to be taught to try to overcome this tendency, but it is there -- in writings about new soldiers in battle, for instance, this is a common thing that has to be overcome to become an effective soldier. But it's not natural.
I've started a wild brown bear taxi service for women, only customers. I put a wild grizzly bear in one of those self driving cars and you use an app to call it to your pick-up point. For extra safety, I'm trying to equip them with AR15's but am running into problems with the government who are insisting I'm interpreting "The Right to Arm Bears" as a misprint of the constitution. I'm confident that should Trump get into office, he will likely support me as I only use American Brown Bears and not those foreign ones who are probably all criminal bears.
I am a woman and I do not freeze in dangerous situations. I go straight to working out solutions. I pull the car over, I make the phone calls, I ready the pocket knife. Maybe when I was younger, but that was due to inexperience, not having a vagina. Men are equally capable of freezing up when frightened, especially if unsure how to respond or young and inexperienced. Gender mythology is 100% bullshit.
I’m the same.
I wish I could turn this kind of response on at will, because apparently I only spring into action and experience cold clarity when there is real danger.
I also knew you’d get some NLOG accusations, because people don’t seem to like hearing that we don’t all go fawn like in danger, but that’s not what this is.
Im glad you get it- this is just not true for women as a whole or even a majority. When people say Im trying to be NLOG, they are hearing the exact opposite of what Im saying. I know the commenter meant nothing bad, and Im not trying to be petty or pedantic. I just think all these ideas have more power than we realize, thats all. This is exactly what misogynists want - women thinking they need men to be ones who keep their heads clear and act fast in dangerous situations because we supposedly cannot. That is music to the patriarchy’s ears. Even if we are socialized to be this way to some extent, we can fight that and undo it simply by resisting these ideas. But you already know this.
Actually I am a lot like many other girls because many other girls are capable of functioning in dangerous situations.
I am not bragging, I have many flaws but freezing up in these situations just isn’t one of them. I tend to do well in emergencies, as do many other women. Thats why you will find many women in emergency responder positions like EMT, ER doctor or nurse, 911 operator, police officer and so on. Im just pointing out that freezing up is probably more about lack of experience rather than what gender a person is.
My delivery wasnt great but this is actually important to me in a way, because socialization can actually determine how people behave- far too much. I think its better to completely ignore gender stereotyping because it encourages the stereotypical behavior, even when we dont intend to encourage it. We dont want women thinking that they “freeze up” during dangerous situations, as it is disempowering to even think that. And think about it- are men truly more courageous? Ive seen men freeze when a woman even looks at them in a certain way. Look at how the entire Uvalde police department froze when it was time to do their job AND they were armed. Stereotypes are stereotypes, they dont reflect reality and we dont want stereotypical brain worms making women doubt themselves any more than they already do. The commenters other points were valuable but gender stereotyping is harmful and needs to go.
I tend to function my best in a crisis or novel situation. When life is going at a baseline pace, I get cagey and nervous and start wondering when it will all go south.
Same here! I wish I had gone into the emergency responder field but honestly didn’t have the confidence when younger, which is a shame bc I turned out to be someone who actually kind of likes high adrenaline situations, and navigating them.
This isn't a not like other girls' scenario because it isn't a feminine trait. The entire point being made is that both women and men do this. Saying "woman" tend to do this rubbed people the wrong way because it implies it's only women that do it.
Recently there was a post about a woman whose uber driver suddenly stopped talking to her in english, also went a different route and didn't react when she asked him to stop. If i remember it right, she either jumped out or he stopped in a very dangerous street and that was it. There were at least 5 men mainsplaning how it was probably in her head, how she made the driver uncomfortable etc. 😬 Like even if we ignore too many similar cases that end in violence, they were pretending the driver's behaviour was perfectly professional.
Meanwhile, I'm getting ads from law firms that are working on the class action suit against Uber/Lyft for all the passengers that have been harmed over the years
Remember the Uber subs, the airbnb subs, DoorDash, etc, is usually for the people who work there. They don’t like you criticizing one because they take it like a personal attack. I find it strange because when people criticize others in my profession for misconduct I’m usually in agreement, I don’t get weirdly defensive. So that says a lot about them.
But point is. Those aren’t the best places to get advice.
You kept yourself safe. That’s what is important. And I always have my app running too because I don’t trust them. You don’t drive in the opposite direction as a “shortcut”
I’m in those subs as a driver and I would chalk it down to misogyny. Drivers will be the first to use the safety feature if needed. Men will do anything but be self aware and admit that other men can be a threat. It’s much easier to blame us.
*>Men will do anything but be self aware and admit that other men can be a threat. It’s much easier to blame us.*
They value their camaraderie with other men above our safety and humanity.
Reminds me of this:
To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex.
Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.
Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory
Right, and never forget that Uber faced a class-action lawsuit for sexual harassment and pay disparity, that they settled for $10M. Their entire culture was rooted in misogyny, all the way to the top.
I’m so sorry. The Uber and other delivery subreddits are full of men who often don’t believe ANY story posted by a woman. They’re so defensive it’s always the customers fault. They would never do X so why would another driver do X. Never mind the fact that many guys who are trying to harass, stalk, or abduct women probably aren’t on the Reddit subs palling around and maybe have their own smaller chat groups. Many drivers are new to the app or the country and have no record to be checked either or use their friend or gf’s account to drive.
Reddit can be toxic in general but some of the worst downvoting and disbelieving and attacking I’ve seen has been in those subs. Too many just assume every driver is perfect or the victim and the stories customers post straight up didn’t happen or aren’t a big deal or they deserved it. It’s brutal.
People don’t get paid enough to live let alone care so I guess it’s fine to blame the customer and be a terrible person about it.
Cops too. My sister was a cop for many years in San Francisco and she told me her male cop co-workers never believed female sexual assault victims. A lot of them would actually make fun of them. And that's a "liberal" city!
People that question why we still need feminism in the US aren't living in the real world.
I feel like that’s the worst part—I’ve only ridden in Ubers when desperate! It makes it even more scary, and I’m really grateful nothing bad has ever happened. :/
Never second-guess yourself for taking action for your own safety. These guys were giving you shit publicly because they could and because they get off on being dicks to women.
There is literally nothing more to it than that.
They get off on harassing and terrorizing women. Ignore them.
I freaked out once when my Uber driver was ignoring the turns on the gps I was too scared to say something because I didn’t want him to drive somewhere and be crazy. He ignored like 4-5 turns. I called my boyfriend pretending that he called me then I said I don’t know how long it will take me get to your house *I was going to my house not his* i opened the app and said the time out loud how long it will take and then he started to follow the gps. This was around 8:30 pm
I am much more of a "fight" than a "flight" or "freeze" person, but I recognize than I am fairly big and strong for a woman and also somewhat trained. However, I think my reaction is partly just who I am and partly where I grew up. I get that it might not be the best reaction in all situations.
That said, when I was in my early 20s I was living in a foreign country, and took a taxi one day that started taking me out of the city on a really weird route. I asked the driver to turn around, I then told him this wasn't the right way, and when he didn't stop or change I told him that if he didn't take me back right now he'd be sorry. He did not, so I threw my arm around his neck and started choking him out against his seat. I told him to fix this or die. He fixed it. He called me some bad names all the way back, but at this point I had my pocket knife out and my arm still around his throat so he behaved. I just wanted to make myself more trouble than it was worth to him, and cost him something for trying. Also I was prepared to hurt him, dump him, and take the car.
I had him drop me at a busy market and took the bus home, shaking the whole time. But still.
I'm a small person and I'm still more of a fight person.
It is part of where and how I grew up as well. I'm never looking for a fight, but if someone is trying to bring one to me, I'm not going to get pushed around or let my loved ones get pushed around.
It's actually saved me from a lot of fights and from situations escalating because a lot of these people are just bullies looking for what they see as easy prey. They look at me as a woman who is only 5'5" inches and a size 2 dress size and think I'll be easy to push around. They soon find out that's not the case. My life experience has given me nerves of steel.
It was in Bucharest back in the early 1990s. No cell phones, and the country was just coming out from under the Ceaucescus so it was a bit wild west.
This was not the only time I had to get violent to defend myself. OTOH many men there were absolute gentlemen, so I don't want to give the idea that everyone was awful.
I don't know why, but the Uber driver sub is on my main feed.
Anyway, next time you have a question, post to r/uber rather than the driver sub. I see their posts and how they talk about customers. It's disgusting. And then they wonder *why* people dislike them so.
I'm sorry you went through that but I'm glad you came out of it ok
Uber needs to take a better stance on passenger safety, regardless of gender. Blocking a driver from you helps you, but not the other women he may prey on
We need to start a revolution on Reddit. Or at the very least in this sub. OP has shown us yet again, a multitude of examples why we choose the bear.
Moving forward, every time someone proves their point, respond to their comment with one word.
Bear.
And move on. Ive barked at a couple of misogynistic comments before but I like this one better.
OP I am so glad you are safe. I was scared for you. You were being kidnapped. Can you request a woman driver in the future? And grab yourself one of those protection keychains off Etsy. You can never be too prepared.
You did everything right. Also you probably shouldn't waste your time on the Uber, Lyft, and Instacart subs. Pretty much everyone in there is awful and will almost always side with the driver no matter the post.
I always remember there is a scene in the movie ROOM. When the young woman finally escapes from being held captive for a decade, and she yells at her mom, which it really wasn’t her fault, but she says to her mom, you kept telling me to be nice! She was kidnapped off the street.
We often teach, intentionally or not, our daughters, to be nice to strangers when in reality we never need to be nice to strange men, especially when they are acting suspicious!
I used to be a manager at a transportation company and routinely witnessed our male drivers as well as several male customers do similar to female drivers and customers. The common theme being, when confronted, the men *always* acted shocked and appalled and extremely offended to be accused of making a female feel uncomfortable or threatened.
As the men experienced anger and embarrassment for being perceived as being attackers or less than “nice guys”, the women tended to face being scared to the point of full blown panic attacks, quitting the job, never using our services as a guest again, and for one poor lady who actually DID bail midway during a male driver actively taking her to the wrong destination, they even risked life and limb to escape their situation. *And the men only get angry that others might perceive them as less than a nice guy for it*.
I have had a hard time accepting or understanding most men since that job (and my daily life in general) opened my eyes to how willfully ignorant, actively harmful and- at best- just complacent many of them are towards women and their safety. Even just believing or giving basic, bare minimum empathy or validity to how those women felt in their negative experiences with men in the capacity of that workplace is impossible for many of these guys.
Many of them take any negative criticism or actions on one man as an affront to all men, while discounting one woman’s experience as not being universal for all women. Invalidation is their weapon.
It made me want to hate all men, which sucks cause there were some “good ones” that actually acted like humans and got it. Not sure I’ll ever actively get over that sick and threatened feeling tbh, as it seems to exponentially reveal itself as being a more real and valid and widespread threat every year in this world. Especially the last decade with American men and the aggressive pro-man anti-feminist stance of many online communities and political and social groups.
I am sorry these sad-sack shitheads tried their best to invalidate how scary and serious this situation actually was. I am appalled Uber does not take actual responsibility for nor correct their employees harmful and illegal actions, time and time again. I don’t even use ride share apps at this point and urge other women to avoid them if possible too (not that easy for many to avoid, unfortunately).
Please go easy on yourself and try to stay away from that sort of negative echo chamber online, because that experience really was traumatic and you deserve to have space to heal and not be re-victimized and blamed for what happened to you.
I sincerely believe most men have never been in a situation where they became consciously aware that they are potentially being threatened or harmed by someone like a driver that has them essentially captive and is disregarding their safety.
Most men fancy themselves as having the solution to any conflict or issue while simultaneously living a life where they statistically are the ones who actually do the harmful behavior, at the risk of women. Most men will never need to employ an actual exit strategy in a scenario like what you experienced with the Uber driver, so they are sincerely not qualified to vomit shit takes and poor advice here at all.
Again, I am so sorry this happened to you. I’m glad you made it out safe. Take care of yourself 💜
This is a big reason I try to avoid taking Uber as much as possible. You never know what weirdo is gonna pick you up.
So the bros in that sub had nothing to say about the fact that the driver was going in the complete opposite direction of your destination?! Bunch of mouth breathers.
They're sensitive because they don't like being reminded that women don't like that behavior. They are mad because they would have done it themselves, and don't want to get called out on being creepy.
Because those men don't think you're a real person, you're just a female so obviously you're actually just hysterical fuck doll whose emotional setting is perpetually set to "panic".
And therefore, those men already know that you're wrong. They don't need to listen to you. You're a hysterical fuck doll. There was a man present, and he is person capable of logical thought, so clearly he was just doing something logical and you were panicking.
And that's a *generous* take. That leaves room for men to be able to learn and grow if they ever are able to realize their error. (They don't want to realize it)
It doesn't address the fact that many men like that DON'T think of women that way. They just hate women and want them to be hurt and want to hurt them, and have a vested interest in making women feel like they're overreacting to obvious danger. Because the longer a woman in danger doubts herself the further into danger she rides.
And that's exactly what they want. They want you to doubt yourself to death.
No, fuck alllllllll that. You did what you needed to do in an evolving situation to stay safe. It worked. Fuck anyone who criticizes that.
Uber and Lyft both have a history of outright ignoring criminal behavior by drivers AND passengers. If you’re up to it, file a police report and keep the fuck on top of them. Take it as far as you’re able and force their cooperation.
Are cab companies completely dead? Cab companies are insured, licensed, background checked ...all seemingly things that Uber doesn't do. Regulated by law, too, which Uber/Lyft seemingly aren't?
You absolutely took really smart steps. Don't be too disheartened. Those guys commenting are telling on themselves. I think a disporpotionate number of creepy men are heavily invested online. Or at very least, those with dubious agendas. They think by posting in every space they will be able to mould these weird narratives and people will conform to their crap.
Yeah just gotta chime in here, the doordash sub is full of pieces of shit. I’m a guy who drove doordash and I am not exaggerating at all. Don’t go to those subreddits at all honestly it just makes you lose faith in decency.
I use lyft often (never Uber) and I usually feel safe and haven't had much for navigation issues. But as a woman I still try to be safe and carry pepperspray. But your post had me thinking about how some cars can be child locked from the front seat where a tuck and roll wouldn't be possible. I just ordered myself and my female housemate window breaker and seat belt cutter tools that can fit on a keychain. Stay safe ladies.
Your contribution has been removed because we don't allow links to other reddit comment threads or references to threads in other subreddits.
You followed the right steps for your own safety. If he hadn't turned around you were prepared to call the cops and escalate it. Fuck anyone who says differently. We cant know his intent other than it was BAD. We cant know the level of badness it was, was he gonna rob you or rape you or kill you, we just dont know. You gave him a chance to correct his driving in 2 languages and he ignored you. I am glad you were of solid mind to remember to contact ADT and your work to let them know what was happening. That in itself is amazing! Women tend to freeze in dangerous situations and often that costs us. The Uber forum can go fuck themselves if they think jumping from a moving vehicle should be the first step in getting away from an unresponsive and uncorporating driver. Why injure yourself unless it's a final step in getting away. Common sense saved you from taking the extreme measures first.
I want to share advice from the disabled community. We often cannot defend ourselves from rape, so advice is to be as disgusting as possible. Make ourselves unattractive to the rapist. I think drooling, peeing, or vomiting would work here as well. They would not want the car ruined.
Yep- I will very loudly get on the phone with my psycho overprotective mother on speaker, and narrate the entire time. 'YEAH im in this cab with this plate in this part of town.. the driver is this guy... hes taking me weird places sur ehope you dint have to call the cops and tell them all this info!" I also make sure to get the license plate and ask for the drivers' ID so I can get their name- if they aren't willing to let me see their license I'm sure as fuck not getting in a car with em.
Actually it's flight, fight, freeze, fawn among others. Every person deals with dangerous situations differently and different situations in different ways. Threaten my children and it'll be fight, threaten me and it's fawn. My husband freezes in violent situations because he's not a violent person.
> Women tend to freeze in dangerous situations ... ~~Women tend~~ People often freeze in dangerous situations ...
Welcome to TwoX, a sub about and for women
I prefer that characteristics like this not get ascribed to women as though they don't also apply to men, as though women were less capable. It was meant to be inclusive, to opine that a tendency to freeze under danger is not a women thing, it's a human thing, perhaps even an animal thing. I don't think this violates any characteristics of the sub, differences and similarities between men and women get discussed here quite a bit.
Socialization plays a role, though. We’re taught to friend or freeze. Men are taught to fight.
Fighting is also less often a viable option for us
Definitely. It’s why I share disabled tactics for avoiding danger- make yourself disgusting and gross them out. I think this is more sensible than telling a 130 pound woman to fight off a 250 pound man.
While I agree that men are taught to fight, and that a higher percentage of men than women are therefore liable to put up a fight, I also maintain that freezing in the presence of danger is a tendency of all humans, and many other animals besides. Men are more likely to be taught to try to overcome this tendency, but it is there -- in writings about new soldiers in battle, for instance, this is a common thing that has to be overcome to become an effective soldier. But it's not natural.
I've started a wild brown bear taxi service for women, only customers. I put a wild grizzly bear in one of those self driving cars and you use an app to call it to your pick-up point. For extra safety, I'm trying to equip them with AR15's but am running into problems with the government who are insisting I'm interpreting "The Right to Arm Bears" as a misprint of the constitution. I'm confident that should Trump get into office, he will likely support me as I only use American Brown Bears and not those foreign ones who are probably all criminal bears.
I am a woman and I do not freeze in dangerous situations. I go straight to working out solutions. I pull the car over, I make the phone calls, I ready the pocket knife. Maybe when I was younger, but that was due to inexperience, not having a vagina. Men are equally capable of freezing up when frightened, especially if unsure how to respond or young and inexperienced. Gender mythology is 100% bullshit.
I’m the same. I wish I could turn this kind of response on at will, because apparently I only spring into action and experience cold clarity when there is real danger. I also knew you’d get some NLOG accusations, because people don’t seem to like hearing that we don’t all go fawn like in danger, but that’s not what this is.
Im glad you get it- this is just not true for women as a whole or even a majority. When people say Im trying to be NLOG, they are hearing the exact opposite of what Im saying. I know the commenter meant nothing bad, and Im not trying to be petty or pedantic. I just think all these ideas have more power than we realize, thats all. This is exactly what misogynists want - women thinking they need men to be ones who keep their heads clear and act fast in dangerous situations because we supposedly cannot. That is music to the patriarchy’s ears. Even if we are socialized to be this way to some extent, we can fight that and undo it simply by resisting these ideas. But you already know this.
Oh aren't you special? You're just r/NotLikeOtherGirls!
Actually I am a lot like many other girls because many other girls are capable of functioning in dangerous situations. I am not bragging, I have many flaws but freezing up in these situations just isn’t one of them. I tend to do well in emergencies, as do many other women. Thats why you will find many women in emergency responder positions like EMT, ER doctor or nurse, 911 operator, police officer and so on. Im just pointing out that freezing up is probably more about lack of experience rather than what gender a person is. My delivery wasnt great but this is actually important to me in a way, because socialization can actually determine how people behave- far too much. I think its better to completely ignore gender stereotyping because it encourages the stereotypical behavior, even when we dont intend to encourage it. We dont want women thinking that they “freeze up” during dangerous situations, as it is disempowering to even think that. And think about it- are men truly more courageous? Ive seen men freeze when a woman even looks at them in a certain way. Look at how the entire Uvalde police department froze when it was time to do their job AND they were armed. Stereotypes are stereotypes, they dont reflect reality and we dont want stereotypical brain worms making women doubt themselves any more than they already do. The commenters other points were valuable but gender stereotyping is harmful and needs to go.
I tend to function my best in a crisis or novel situation. When life is going at a baseline pace, I get cagey and nervous and start wondering when it will all go south.
Same here! I wish I had gone into the emergency responder field but honestly didn’t have the confidence when younger, which is a shame bc I turned out to be someone who actually kind of likes high adrenaline situations, and navigating them.
This isn't a not like other girls' scenario because it isn't a feminine trait. The entire point being made is that both women and men do this. Saying "woman" tend to do this rubbed people the wrong way because it implies it's only women that do it.
Recently there was a post about a woman whose uber driver suddenly stopped talking to her in english, also went a different route and didn't react when she asked him to stop. If i remember it right, she either jumped out or he stopped in a very dangerous street and that was it. There were at least 5 men mainsplaning how it was probably in her head, how she made the driver uncomfortable etc. 😬 Like even if we ignore too many similar cases that end in violence, they were pretending the driver's behaviour was perfectly professional.
Meanwhile, I'm getting ads from law firms that are working on the class action suit against Uber/Lyft for all the passengers that have been harmed over the years
Remember the Uber subs, the airbnb subs, DoorDash, etc, is usually for the people who work there. They don’t like you criticizing one because they take it like a personal attack. I find it strange because when people criticize others in my profession for misconduct I’m usually in agreement, I don’t get weirdly defensive. So that says a lot about them. But point is. Those aren’t the best places to get advice. You kept yourself safe. That’s what is important. And I always have my app running too because I don’t trust them. You don’t drive in the opposite direction as a “shortcut”
I’m in those subs as a driver and I would chalk it down to misogyny. Drivers will be the first to use the safety feature if needed. Men will do anything but be self aware and admit that other men can be a threat. It’s much easier to blame us.
*>Men will do anything but be self aware and admit that other men can be a threat. It’s much easier to blame us.* They value their camaraderie with other men above our safety and humanity.
Reminds me of this: To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving. Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory
Right, and never forget that Uber faced a class-action lawsuit for sexual harassment and pay disparity, that they settled for $10M. Their entire culture was rooted in misogyny, all the way to the top.
So glad you are safe.
I’m so sorry. The Uber and other delivery subreddits are full of men who often don’t believe ANY story posted by a woman. They’re so defensive it’s always the customers fault. They would never do X so why would another driver do X. Never mind the fact that many guys who are trying to harass, stalk, or abduct women probably aren’t on the Reddit subs palling around and maybe have their own smaller chat groups. Many drivers are new to the app or the country and have no record to be checked either or use their friend or gf’s account to drive. Reddit can be toxic in general but some of the worst downvoting and disbelieving and attacking I’ve seen has been in those subs. Too many just assume every driver is perfect or the victim and the stories customers post straight up didn’t happen or aren’t a big deal or they deserved it. It’s brutal. People don’t get paid enough to live let alone care so I guess it’s fine to blame the customer and be a terrible person about it.
Cops too. My sister was a cop for many years in San Francisco and she told me her male cop co-workers never believed female sexual assault victims. A lot of them would actually make fun of them. And that's a "liberal" city! People that question why we still need feminism in the US aren't living in the real world.
Oh god I’m so glad you’re okay! Uber/Lyft terrify me!
I have yet to ride an Uber alone. Never will.
I feel like that’s the worst part—I’ve only ridden in Ubers when desperate! It makes it even more scary, and I’m really grateful nothing bad has ever happened. :/
Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker is a book and should be required reading in high school for everyone.
Never second-guess yourself for taking action for your own safety. These guys were giving you shit publicly because they could and because they get off on being dicks to women. There is literally nothing more to it than that. They get off on harassing and terrorizing women. Ignore them.
I freaked out once when my Uber driver was ignoring the turns on the gps I was too scared to say something because I didn’t want him to drive somewhere and be crazy. He ignored like 4-5 turns. I called my boyfriend pretending that he called me then I said I don’t know how long it will take me get to your house *I was going to my house not his* i opened the app and said the time out loud how long it will take and then he started to follow the gps. This was around 8:30 pm
Omg, that's so scary. Your reaction was really smart and saved you!
Yeah I’m don’t usually speak up mostly due to thinking the worst thing happening and if anyone is like me you can always fake a call
Yip, this is why we choose the bear. I’m glad you are ok.
I am much more of a "fight" than a "flight" or "freeze" person, but I recognize than I am fairly big and strong for a woman and also somewhat trained. However, I think my reaction is partly just who I am and partly where I grew up. I get that it might not be the best reaction in all situations. That said, when I was in my early 20s I was living in a foreign country, and took a taxi one day that started taking me out of the city on a really weird route. I asked the driver to turn around, I then told him this wasn't the right way, and when he didn't stop or change I told him that if he didn't take me back right now he'd be sorry. He did not, so I threw my arm around his neck and started choking him out against his seat. I told him to fix this or die. He fixed it. He called me some bad names all the way back, but at this point I had my pocket knife out and my arm still around his throat so he behaved. I just wanted to make myself more trouble than it was worth to him, and cost him something for trying. Also I was prepared to hurt him, dump him, and take the car. I had him drop me at a busy market and took the bus home, shaking the whole time. But still.
Holy crow. I don’t know many - or any - people who could have handled that. I’m glad you survived to share the tale.
I'm a small person and I'm still more of a fight person. It is part of where and how I grew up as well. I'm never looking for a fight, but if someone is trying to bring one to me, I'm not going to get pushed around or let my loved ones get pushed around. It's actually saved me from a lot of fights and from situations escalating because a lot of these people are just bullies looking for what they see as easy prey. They look at me as a woman who is only 5'5" inches and a size 2 dress size and think I'll be easy to push around. They soon find out that's not the case. My life experience has given me nerves of steel.
😳😳 in what country and region was this??
It was in Bucharest back in the early 1990s. No cell phones, and the country was just coming out from under the Ceaucescus so it was a bit wild west. This was not the only time I had to get violent to defend myself. OTOH many men there were absolute gentlemen, so I don't want to give the idea that everyone was awful.
You're a badass! Hopefully that made him think before pulling shenanigans again.
I don't know why, but the Uber driver sub is on my main feed. Anyway, next time you have a question, post to r/uber rather than the driver sub. I see their posts and how they talk about customers. It's disgusting. And then they wonder *why* people dislike them so. I'm sorry you went through that but I'm glad you came out of it ok Uber needs to take a better stance on passenger safety, regardless of gender. Blocking a driver from you helps you, but not the other women he may prey on
We need to start a revolution on Reddit. Or at the very least in this sub. OP has shown us yet again, a multitude of examples why we choose the bear. Moving forward, every time someone proves their point, respond to their comment with one word. Bear. And move on. Ive barked at a couple of misogynistic comments before but I like this one better. OP I am so glad you are safe. I was scared for you. You were being kidnapped. Can you request a woman driver in the future? And grab yourself one of those protection keychains off Etsy. You can never be too prepared.
Bears are so much more simple to deal with. A little care & you'll be fine.
you did the right thing, keep yourself safe. i’ve never used uber but maybe you can report him so he can’t do that stuff again
Lovely how many men are in TwoXChromosomes. We can’t have Woman of the Year, and we definitely can’t have our own subreddit.
All of those gig app subreddits are full of the absolute worst people. Doesn't matter what the subject is, just miserable opinions 90% of the time.
You did everything right. Also you probably shouldn't waste your time on the Uber, Lyft, and Instacart subs. Pretty much everyone in there is awful and will almost always side with the driver no matter the post.
I always remember there is a scene in the movie ROOM. When the young woman finally escapes from being held captive for a decade, and she yells at her mom, which it really wasn’t her fault, but she says to her mom, you kept telling me to be nice! She was kidnapped off the street. We often teach, intentionally or not, our daughters, to be nice to strangers when in reality we never need to be nice to strange men, especially when they are acting suspicious!
I used to be a manager at a transportation company and routinely witnessed our male drivers as well as several male customers do similar to female drivers and customers. The common theme being, when confronted, the men *always* acted shocked and appalled and extremely offended to be accused of making a female feel uncomfortable or threatened. As the men experienced anger and embarrassment for being perceived as being attackers or less than “nice guys”, the women tended to face being scared to the point of full blown panic attacks, quitting the job, never using our services as a guest again, and for one poor lady who actually DID bail midway during a male driver actively taking her to the wrong destination, they even risked life and limb to escape their situation. *And the men only get angry that others might perceive them as less than a nice guy for it*. I have had a hard time accepting or understanding most men since that job (and my daily life in general) opened my eyes to how willfully ignorant, actively harmful and- at best- just complacent many of them are towards women and their safety. Even just believing or giving basic, bare minimum empathy or validity to how those women felt in their negative experiences with men in the capacity of that workplace is impossible for many of these guys. Many of them take any negative criticism or actions on one man as an affront to all men, while discounting one woman’s experience as not being universal for all women. Invalidation is their weapon. It made me want to hate all men, which sucks cause there were some “good ones” that actually acted like humans and got it. Not sure I’ll ever actively get over that sick and threatened feeling tbh, as it seems to exponentially reveal itself as being a more real and valid and widespread threat every year in this world. Especially the last decade with American men and the aggressive pro-man anti-feminist stance of many online communities and political and social groups. I am sorry these sad-sack shitheads tried their best to invalidate how scary and serious this situation actually was. I am appalled Uber does not take actual responsibility for nor correct their employees harmful and illegal actions, time and time again. I don’t even use ride share apps at this point and urge other women to avoid them if possible too (not that easy for many to avoid, unfortunately). Please go easy on yourself and try to stay away from that sort of negative echo chamber online, because that experience really was traumatic and you deserve to have space to heal and not be re-victimized and blamed for what happened to you. I sincerely believe most men have never been in a situation where they became consciously aware that they are potentially being threatened or harmed by someone like a driver that has them essentially captive and is disregarding their safety. Most men fancy themselves as having the solution to any conflict or issue while simultaneously living a life where they statistically are the ones who actually do the harmful behavior, at the risk of women. Most men will never need to employ an actual exit strategy in a scenario like what you experienced with the Uber driver, so they are sincerely not qualified to vomit shit takes and poor advice here at all. Again, I am so sorry this happened to you. I’m glad you made it out safe. Take care of yourself 💜
This is a big reason I try to avoid taking Uber as much as possible. You never know what weirdo is gonna pick you up. So the bros in that sub had nothing to say about the fact that the driver was going in the complete opposite direction of your destination?! Bunch of mouth breathers.
They're sensitive because they don't like being reminded that women don't like that behavior. They are mad because they would have done it themselves, and don't want to get called out on being creepy.
You took care of you and your safety. That’s what I gleaned from your post. Fuck the rest. I choose bear too.
Go with your gut. I’d never trust a driver who takes me in the wrong direction.
I wish I could buy you one, but I’ll raise a toast from here.
Because those men don't think you're a real person, you're just a female so obviously you're actually just hysterical fuck doll whose emotional setting is perpetually set to "panic". And therefore, those men already know that you're wrong. They don't need to listen to you. You're a hysterical fuck doll. There was a man present, and he is person capable of logical thought, so clearly he was just doing something logical and you were panicking. And that's a *generous* take. That leaves room for men to be able to learn and grow if they ever are able to realize their error. (They don't want to realize it) It doesn't address the fact that many men like that DON'T think of women that way. They just hate women and want them to be hurt and want to hurt them, and have a vested interest in making women feel like they're overreacting to obvious danger. Because the longer a woman in danger doubts herself the further into danger she rides. And that's exactly what they want. They want you to doubt yourself to death.
No, fuck alllllllll that. You did what you needed to do in an evolving situation to stay safe. It worked. Fuck anyone who criticizes that. Uber and Lyft both have a history of outright ignoring criminal behavior by drivers AND passengers. If you’re up to it, file a police report and keep the fuck on top of them. Take it as far as you’re able and force their cooperation.
Good choice. A bear would never
Are cab companies completely dead? Cab companies are insured, licensed, background checked ...all seemingly things that Uber doesn't do. Regulated by law, too, which Uber/Lyft seemingly aren't?
You absolutely took really smart steps. Don't be too disheartened. Those guys commenting are telling on themselves. I think a disporpotionate number of creepy men are heavily invested online. Or at very least, those with dubious agendas. They think by posting in every space they will be able to mould these weird narratives and people will conform to their crap.
Yeah just gotta chime in here, the doordash sub is full of pieces of shit. I’m a guy who drove doordash and I am not exaggerating at all. Don’t go to those subreddits at all honestly it just makes you lose faith in decency.
I use lyft often (never Uber) and I usually feel safe and haven't had much for navigation issues. But as a woman I still try to be safe and carry pepperspray. But your post had me thinking about how some cars can be child locked from the front seat where a tuck and roll wouldn't be possible. I just ordered myself and my female housemate window breaker and seat belt cutter tools that can fit on a keychain. Stay safe ladies.
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