July 24, 2025
“Women Preferences” allows women the opportunity to choose between men and women passengers and drivers in Uber settings, if available.
This fall, Uber will launch a pilot program that enables women to request female drivers.
“Women Preferences,” which will roll out in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit, allows passengers to select the gender of their riders. Conversely, women drivers will be allowed to choose only women customers.
To access the setting, women customers will see “Women Drivers” as a settings option. While the setting does not guarantee a match with a female driver, it increases the chances. If women drivers are unavailable, a standard ride will arrive. Women drivers can also choose the “Women Rider Preference” to accept customer requests from women only.
“Across the U.S., women riders and drivers have told us they want the option to be matched with other women on trips,” Uber said in a statement. “We’ve heard them — and now we’re introducing new ways to give them even more control over how they ride and drive.”
The program has already been implemented Germany and France. The company introduced similar tools in Saudi Arabia in 2019, following the legalization of women’s driving rights. Since then, Women’s Preferences has expanded to more than 40 countries.
Uber is currently in legal proceedings due to multiple sexual assaults reported by its employees. The 2021–2022 Uber safety report detailed 2,717 serious sexual assault or misconduct incidents. As a result, numerous previous customers are suing the company.
According to Reuters, the lawsuit claims the app did not include “a feature to match passengers with drivers of the same gender.”
Consumer advocates view the feature as a step forward, as only women assigned female in the app are eligible to participate. The feature does not account for nonbinary riders. However, in 2023, Lyft launched its Women+ Connect feature, which supports both women and nonbinary riders and drivers.
Additionally, Uber offers other tools to increase safety for all customers, including encrypted audio recordings, RideCheck alerts, trip sharing and 24/7 in-app support.
As the pilot rolls out, the company will monitor usage and wait times to determine if the program is successful and ready for a nationwide rollout.
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