[URBAN NOTE] "Don’t Worry About my Safety as a Woman in an Uber"

[rfmcdonald]

In an essay at Torontoist, Viviane Fairbank is scathing about politicians, in Toronto and elsewhere, who deploy arguments about women's safety only when it is politically convenient for them.

In May 2015, York Regional Police charged an Uber driver with sexual assault. After news of the crime broke, ever-quotable Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) advised women on the appropriate reaction: stop using Uber. “Women in Toronto have got to be warned, and I’m warning the City of Toronto’s women,” he said. In a similar vein, Councillor Jim Karygiannis (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt) announced last year that he “wouldn’t feel safe if [his] daughter or wife were to get in an Uber cab.”

Nonetheless, private ride-sharing services were legalized by the City of Toronto last week. The decision wasn’t easy for City Council: though it’s clear that Toronto’s taxi services aren’t enough, contention surrounds Uber, quantified by the dozens of taxi and Uber enthusiasts who showed up to the Council vote.

Forgotten amid an imbroglio of complaints over regulation and pricing were the concerns raised by Mammoliti and Karygiannis, no matter the implicit condescension: that hopping into a car with an Uber driver puts women at risk. Moreover—and perhaps unsurprisingly—female voices were ignored or, even worse, mocked during the majority of Toronto’s Uber vs. taxi debate.

Women’s safety, it seems, has warranted political focus only when city councillors need fodder for their greater anti-Uber campaigns.

For some people, arguments like Mammoliti’s and Karygiannis’s are convincing enough. But many women, including me, already know the dangers of navigating a big city. For years, we have taken care of ourselves—and continue to do so in the age of Uber.