New ride-hailing firm for women seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen

Article here. Excerpt:

'A new ride-hailing app that caters to women by allowing drivers and riders to choose their preferred gender of the person who will be sharing their vehicle is on its way to the District and — who knows? — maybe even the Supreme Court.

The new service is Safr, and it’s built on the idea that women feel more comfortable driving or riding with other women. It rolled out about a year ago in Boston and looks a little like a retread of Chariot for Women, a Boston-based ride-hailing service that ran into flak over its gender-specific business model.

Safr talks a lot about “empowering” women in its pitch. Though Safr is hiring men, too, its website and its boss make it clear that its reason to be is luring mostly female drivers and riders to the app with the promise that they won’t have to share a car with the opposite sex if they don’t want to.
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However admirable its goals, Safr seems to be operating on the assumption that the only way for people to be safe or comfortable is to be with their own kind. And asking for a lift from Point A to Point B on a public transportation service is not the same as getting a deep-tissue massage at the gym or requesting a same-sex security agent for a required pat-down at the airport.

There’s perhaps even a whiff of patronization in the notion that the only way to ensure a woman’s safety is to keep her separate from men. And there’s doublespeak: Though Safr’s appeal rests on choosing a driver’s or rider’s sex, the company’s website insists Safr isn’t denying service to anyone based on gender.

Ride-hailing and mass transit — or just about any public space in society, when you get right down to it — could be made safer for women. But the way to do that is not by segregating women.'