uber

Fable Goldsmith

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I was recently in an Uber and the driver asked me how my day had been. I told him that I had just taken my daughter to school. He said “you have children? How many?” I replied that I had 3 children. He looked me up and down and said “oh you look good! It’s good to see a mother that hasn’t let herself go” as he puffed out his cheeks…. He then went on to ask if my husband wanted any more children….as if it was solely his choice. I didn’t feel safe enough to tell him I was gay. I was on my way to the Dr surgery. When the driver dropped me off I could feel his eyes on me as I got out….I didn’t look back. After the Dr surgery I still felt a bit rattled so I decided I would walk the 5km home. I was stopped by a man on a bike who said “nice rig! From one good body to another” I kept walking, decided to call my partner so I would feel safer. I tell her about my experience in the Uber as I continue my walk home….that’s when I hear shouting…my partner asks what’s happening…I turn around and a man is calling me to come back. Thinking I’ve dropped my wallet or keys I turn and start to walk toward him. He keeps calling for me. When I get to 20m away, which is what I felt was a distance I could run away I ask him what he wants. He asks “are you looking for someone?” Which I clearly wasn’t. I turned and started walking away quickly… My partner said she was coming to get me.

Francesca

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Last year when I was 16, I got drunk for the first time at my brother’s flat party. I started to get really tired around 1-2am mark and decided to call myself an uber, which I waited for outside on the pavement. A guy in a car beckoned me over to his car, thinking it was my uber I jumped in and shut the door. He apologised for the mess and I asked if he was my uber, he nodded and said yes, however, I noticed that he was not my uber as soon as he locked the doors. Thankfully he was at a red light, so I quickly unlocked the door, swore at him and ran over back to the pavement freaking out. This man thought he had the right to take an intoxicated young female straight from the footpath, I always think back to that moment and appreciate that I still had a small amount of common sense, enough to escape him.

Claudia

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I was in an Uber and the driver (old, white male) was complaining about traffic lights. So, I tried to make a conversation and spoke about how I have just got my learner’s licence and I am learning to drive and then he interrupted me and said “Great, another woman on the road” … thus, promptly ending my conversation with him, earning that sexist bastard a 1 star review

B

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This week really made me think about sexism amongst groups of boys. I went out clubbing in London last weekend for a friend’s 21st birthday. At the end of the night I shared a taxi home with 4 friends (1 girl, 3 boys), on the journey home the driver told us about his stand up comedy in his spare time. He offered to tell us a joke, and we were all happy to hear it, but myself and the other girl were horrified when we heard the punchline, which was that he would sniff our seats once we got out of the taxi. The boys all laughed and even after we expressed our disgust at his crude joke, they couldn’t understand why we didn’t find the joke funny. Once the boys were dropped off, the driver apologised to us for making us feel uncomfortable and explained that he has 3 young daughters whom he wouldn’t want to hear the same comments. We accepted his apology, but it was upsetting was that he begged us not to tell the boys. It made his apology seem insincere that he couldn’t apologise whilst the boys were present, as if it was too embarrassing to accept that he was wrong in front of them. Later in the week I was back at university and during a seminar the topic moved onto Trump’s offensive comments. One boy (I’ll call him X) seemed surprised that the class thought that Trump’s comments were extremely offensive. When X asked for an example, a boy listed Trump’s misogynist comments about women to which X replied ‘oh come on, you’re a guy, you know what it’s like when you’re in a group of your mates’… as if being in a group of boys completely validates sexist, misogynist and disgusting comments towards women! These two separate incidents in the space of 1 week has just reminded me how a lot of the time, sexism isn’t even considered an issue and how it is consistently brushed off rather than spoken about.