To further enhance the safety and comfort of female passengers and drivers using ride-sharing platforms, Uber announced a nationwide rollout in the United States, effective immediately."Women Preferences" pairing featureThis feature allows female passengers to prioritize female drivers when booking a ride, and also allows female drivers to choose to pick up only female passengers. After testing in several cities, this safety mechanism, which many women and their families have long awaited, has finally been officially expanded nationwide.
Three booking options: giving women the choice.
This feature is very intuitive to use and offers three pairing options, primarily targeting female passengers:
• On-demand ride booking:Female passengers can directly select "female driver" when submitting a trip request. If the system estimates a long wait time, passengers can also cancel at any time and switch to a regular ride request to speed up the boarding process.
• Make an appointment in advance (Reserve):For female users who need to plan their trips in advance, they can directly specify a female driver when booking a ride, increasing the certainty of their trip.
• Preset preference settings:Users can enable female driving preferences directly in the app's settings. While this doesn't guarantee a 100% match success rate (depending on the size of the nearby driving pool), it significantly increases the chances of a successful match.
Furthermore, this feature also applies to Uber's "teen accounts," giving parents more peace of mind when booking rides for their underage daughters. On the driver's side, female drivers can also enable preferences in the system to choose to only accept ride orders from female passengers.
Global security strategy originating from Saudi Arabia
In fact, "female preference" is not a new idea that Uber came up with recently.
This feature can be traced back to Saudi Arabia in 2019. At that time, the country had just passed a historic law that officially granted women the legal right to drive. In order to encourage local women to join the ranks of drivers and ensure their safety, Uber pioneered this matching mechanism. Subsequently, the feature was launched in more than 40 countries around the world (including France, Germany, Brazil, etc.).
Within the United States, Uber first conducted small-scale testing in five cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Detroit, in August 2025, and then expanded to 60 cities by the end of the year. This nationwide rollout was only prompted by widespread positive feedback from both passengers and drivers.
The tug-of-war between safety and equality: Facing reverse lawsuits against male drivers
However, this well-intentioned policy has not been without its obstacles in its implementation.
Just as Uber was rolling out its feature nationwide, two male Uber drivers in California filed a class-action lawsuit against the company last November. They argued that the feature allowed a minority of female drivers to access a wider customer base (including all passengers plus dedicated female passengers), while the majority of male drivers were deprived of passenger opportunities. They argued that this violated California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits gender discrimination by businesses, and stressed that it reinforced the gender stereotype that "men are more dangerous than women."
Uber strongly refuted this in court, emphasizing that the feature aligned with the recognized strong public policy interest of "improving safety." Coincidentally, its biggest competitor, Lyft, launched a similar feature nationwide in 2024."Women+Connect" functionAt the same time, they are also facing very similar gender discrimination lawsuits.
