YOUR CHARIOT AWAITS, LADIES
IN DEFENCE OF AN ALL-FEMALE RIDE-SHARING SERVICE
If you were to ask 100 women — of every age, colour, religion and political orientation — if they would prefer a female driver over a male, should they ever find themselves alone and in need of a cab at 2 a.m. on a downtown street, I’d wager that about 97 of them would respond: absolutely! The other three would just be trying to make a point.
The same goes for men with daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts or nieces: I have no doubt many would want to resist the problematic implications of suggesting they’d feel better with a woman behind the wheel, but when it comes to their 22-year-old daughter sharing a car with a stranger in the middle of the night, most would likely prefer that that stranger not be a man — even if they won’t necessarily admit that in a public forum.
This impulse explains the overwhelming support for a new app called Chariot for Women, a ridehailing service that operates almost exactly like Uber, with one major caveat: all its drivers and passengers will be women, with the exception of children under 13. The service was supposed to be launched in Boston Tuesday, but because there was such a tremendous response, the company decided to postpone its launch and work toward introducing the service in several cities throughout the United States.
Chariot for Women founder and former Uber driver Michael Pelletz said he came up with the concept after he felt unsafe behind the wheel after picking up a dodgy passenger. That’s when it occurred to him just what women must experience in similar situations — both as passengers and drivers. From there, he developed the Chariot app, which has several built- in features to authenticate that users actually are who they say they are.
The backlash has al r eady begun, however, with several critics questioning the legality of a company that only hires women ( the states will ultimately have to decide whether gender is a “bona fide occupational qualification” in this case), as well as the ethical implications of operating a woman-only ride- sharing service, which many people point out wouldn’t be tolerated if it were the other way around. And they’re absolute- ly right: chances are there would be protests in the streets if someone tried to launch Chariot for Men. So why is this OK?
Critics of Chariot have raised the point that women often ask to be treated as equals, except when it is inconvenient for them. I have some sympathy for this notion, and indeed, I have little patience for flaccid female empowerment endeavours, such as quotas for cabinet ministers, preferential hiring policies or scholarships for which the applicant’s genitalia are a disqualifying characteristic. The reason is that I believe women are just as fiercely intelligent, ambitious and capable as men, and so they shouldn’t be afforded special treatment in areas where their qualifications can and should be considered, irrespective of what’s between their legs.
Where special treatment is warranted, however, i s where men have such an indomitable advantage that no attempts at social engineering will ever level the playing field: that is, in areas where physical strength and stature inescapably offer them an advantage. That is why, for example, men and women compete separately when it comes to professional sports. By and large, men will always be just a little bit stronger and faster than women, which is something most women are mindful of — if only on a subconscious level — when they step into a stranger’s car at 2 a.m.
Some people have also argued that Chariot and similar initiatives unfairly malign all men as abusers- in- waiting. That’s a fair point. But the fact is that when it comes to physical safety, women generally try to avoid taking any chances. That’s why a woman will, for example, tell a friend her exact location when she goes on a blind date. It doesn’t mean she thinks every man she goes on a date with is actually a rapist with a Tinder account, just that sometimes — rarely — things do go wrong. If she can try to mitigate some of that risk, she will.
Chariot i s probably several months and a few court challenges away from being fully operational. And it will probably be even longer before it makes its way to Canada, if it ever does. But I can say, as someone who generally loathes feel- good measures aimed at empowering women on an intellectual level, I will have the app downloaded and ready on my phone. I suspect a good number of Canada’s daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts and nieces will, too.
IT MAY BE A DOUBLE STANDARD, BUT I’D WAGER THAT A MAJORITY OF MEN WHOSE DAUGHTERS GET INTO A CAB AT 2 A.M. WOULD WANT THE DRIVER TO BE A WOMAN.