From harassment to vandalised vehicles Life for female delivery riders
I dress like a man, I hide my hair and wear a really bulky, puffy jacket ... A lot of the girls who ride mopeds for deliveries take a similar approach
BRISTOL POST
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BRISTOL delivery rider Alex Ramosova often wears masculine clothes when she’s working.
“I dress like a man, I hide my hair and wear a really bulky, puffy jacket,” she says. “I want to look bigger so people will leave me alone. A lot of the girls who ride mopeds for deliveries seem to take a similar approach.”
It is one of countless calculations the 22-year-old makes each day to keep safe or navigate uncomfortable situations. Calculations which have become automatic, but which would not cross the mind of a man in her profession.
The killing of Sarah Everard as she walked home in London sparked a national conversation back in March about male violence against women. It was also a conversation about something wideranging and insidious, in the way men influence how women behave on a daily basis.
Two female delivery workers in Bristol told us of a range of problematic behaviour – from males opening the door in their boxer shorts, to vandalising a vehicle after being ignored.
Alex, who uses her bike for deliveries, has worked for Deliveroo and similar services for three years. She loves most aspects of the job, but says it is common for male customers to “invite themselves into my personal space” when she arrives with their food.
“It’s one thing to say hello, it’s another to come way too close, to bully,” she says.
“It’s astonishing to me that a lot of people don’t know the boundaries of personal space. Maybe they know what they’re doing, maybe they don’t, but at the end of the day it’s uncomfortable and you’re frozen in the moment, not knowing what to do.”
Coronavirus has meant fewer men invading Alex’s personal space, but it has far from solved the problem.
“We have to worry so much about our behaviour as women,” she says. “I have guys invite me inside, trying to get me to come in. I say, ‘I am here, I am at the gate.’
“I find that girls understand better – they know as a woman I do not want to go upstairs to a flat. But often men get annoyed because they think it is ‘our job’ to go upstairs.”
There is a distinction between a man paying a compliment and “sexualising” women, Alex believes.
“I remember one man saying to me, ‘I never get food delivered to my house but if you were the one delivering it, I would order every day.’
“He kept his distance. I told him I was only doing my job, and he was respectful of me saying no. Nothing harmful happened there. But there are some men who make sexual comments and come up really close to your face.”
Violence against Bristol delivery riders is not limited to women – male riders in the city have spoken out in the past about being assaulted while doing their job. But as Alex puts it: “It is one thing to be a Deliveroo rider – it is another to be a woman Deliveroo rider. It’s doubling down on the trouble you get.”
Maria (not her real name), originally from Portugal, has been a delivery worker in Bristol for 18 months. The 25-year-old has had no shortage of unsettling experiences during her time on the job.
“Sometimes it’s so uncomfortable going to the customers when they open the door,” she says.
“One time there was a guy who grabbed his food and his other hand was inside his boxers. It is creepy.”
One of Maria’s worst moments in the job came on a street in Brislington,
at around 8pm one night last November.
“There were a bunch of kids, about 15 or 16 years old. I think they were smoking weed. They could see I was lost, trying to find the house with the order.
“One of the boys said, ‘You have a nice a**.’ He went very close to me. I said, ‘Please let me do my job.’
“I had to go down some stairs to deliver the food. I got back to my car and stopped at the next restaurant, when I saw they had snapped half my numberplate off. I think they did it because I ignored them. It’s like they thought I owed it to talk to them.”
Recently Maria dropped off an order for a boy aged around 15.
“I gave him the food and when I turned around, he whistled at me. I thought it was something about the order, but then he was like, ‘You are sexy, come back.’ These are things I don’t forget. He was a kid, but it made me uncomfortable.”
Neither Alex nor Maria are suggesting Bristol has more issues of this kind than anywhere else. Maria says “it happens everywhere in the world”, and Alex dealt with “much worse” sexual harassment when she lived in London.
“Every woman I know has a handful of stories to share like this,” says Alex.
Alex and Maria make clear they have respect for their employers and they love their jobs, but they believe some improvements could be made by delivery companies. For instance, Alex believes Uber Eats should stop displaying its workers’ faces on the app.
“The customer doesn’t need to see it,” she says. “Suddenly they are expecting a woman - it creates an expectation while they are waiting for you. There is no need for it.”
Maria believes some delivery companies should make it easier for workers to turn down jobs in certain areas.
Alex believes sexual consent needs a far bigger role in the education system. She says: “I know men who have heard about women being harassed, and said they are tired of the discussion. If you are tired of it, you are part of the problem. The discussion needs to keep happening and even the good guys need to be part of that.”
Alex recently helped form a WhatsApp support group for female delivery workers in Bristol to share their experiences of harassment and intimidation. It has around 50 members, who have found a sense of relief in the group, says Alex.
“It’s nice, if you’re not feeling great about something, or you’re a bit uneasy, to be able to message each other,” she says.
Maria adds: “I didn’t know there were so many women who were having the same issues. It’s really helped to be able to talk about it.”