Female-centred ride-hailing apps on the rise in spite of hurdles, women say
The women behind the slowly growing number of ride-hailing apps catering to female passengers and drivers say the hurdles they’ve had to overcome to get their services on the road demonstrate exactly why they’re necessary in the first place.
Women from Halifax to Vancouver Island have tried to launch female-only alternatives to services such as Uber and Lyft, but most have run into barriers ranging from municipal regulations to societal attitudes.
The founders of the handful of such services currently operating say they’re experiencing incredible demand from women seeking a greater sense of safety in their daily travels.
They say it’s common for women to feel uncomfortable riding alone with strangers, but some recent high-profile cases involving sexual assault allegations against drivers have further highlighted the need to provide an alternative.
A female ride-hailing service got rolling in Toronto in mid-March, while efforts are underway in at least three other cities to either get a similar service off the ground or expand the range of one that already exists. The women say attitudes of city officials and local residents have made their efforts feel like an exhausting fight, but they’re determined to carry on.
“The fact that you have a problem with this ... proves that we cannot have anything for ourselves without getting shamed for it,” said Aisha Addo, founder of Toronto ride-hailing service DriveHer.
Addo said the idea for the service provided by and for women came to her one night while driving alone with a licensed male cab driver to a suburb west of the city. She said the chatty driver began asking her increasingly personal questions, such as her dating status and whether she lived alone.
She asked the driver to drop her a block or two from home and eventually arrived safely, but said the experience alerted her to the need for more choice in the city’s transportation sector.
The eventual launch of DriveHer, which opened for business in mid-March, has persuaded Addo that she’s on the right track.
More than a hundred female drivers signed up to participate, she said, and the response among passengers has been even more striking — the app has been downloaded more than 3,000 times on Android and iOS in the past two weeks.
But the warm reception she’s received since the launch contrasted with the resistance she faced when trying to get the project off the ground.
Addo said the greatest challenge was convincing people that DriveHer was not discriminatory, and she had to engage a human rights lawyer to make that case to city officials before the service could launch.
That lawyer, Saron Gebresellassi, said in an email that DriveHer is “entirely compliant with provincial human rights legislation.”
In a statement sent to city officials and provided to The Canadian Press, Gebresellassi explained that the company helps promote “substantive equality” as it addresses inequities experienced by women accessing transportation services.
Gebresellassi also noted that the City of Toronto offers an array of activities and social services solely for women, including shelters and counselling.
But municipal officials weren’t the only ones who needed persuading, Addo said. She’s been confronted by men who insist the DriveHer app violates their rights — an argument that doesn’t hold water for Marcy Segal, a Toronto-based criminal lawyer and women’s rights advocate.
“There’s no prejudice to the men,” Segal said, adding that gender-designated services, such as shelters and washrooms, exist without controversy.
“They’re not going to be stranded. There’s other alternatives for them to get around ... Men aren’t being persecuted by not availing themselves of this taxi service.”
Some feminists, too, balk at the idea of gender-segregated transportation options, which have gained traction around the world. Some countries, including China and Mexico, have gone so far as to designate women-only subway cars to provide female passengers greater safety on public transit.
Julie Lalonde, director of the Ottawa chapter of anti-harassment group Hollaback, said many women feel gender-specific options do little to address the root causes of why women feel unsafe. She said some feminists also fear they exacerbate the risk that victims may be blamed for their ordeal if they opt to take the mainstream option instead of the gender-specific alternative.