WOMEN BEHIND THE WHEELS: A RARE SIGHT IN THE MOST LIVEABLE CITY
“So many people comment on me being the first female Uber driver they have ever seen” says Jodie Fraser who is one of the few female Uber drivers in Melbourne. They are something out of the ordinary. Jodie signed up for Uber because her photography business wasn’t going well. Not only is she amongst the very few drivers, breaking all the stereotypes, she drives Uber only in the night starting around 8pm until midnight or sometimes even later earning about 750- 800 dollars a week.
In 2015, less than 1/8th of the Uber’s Australian driver population were women, though the numbers are expected to be higher this year. Although Uber doesn’t have a local number, in the US over 230,000 women have registered for their first rides.
Even in countries like the US, only 19% of the Uber drivers are female. The company has claimed that the number will rise in the coming few years.
Uber has been the bad light for many reasons , from harassment cases to robbery across the globe. Despite its effectivity, safety has been a major issue, especially for female riders. Naturally, female riders who commute in the night prefer having female drivers. Safety is as much of a concern for the driver as it is for the rider.
As a result of the driver and customer rating system, both the drivers and the rider are now more accountable but still it has left many drivers non-resistant to harassment. The statistics tell the story on its own. Out of every 10 riders interviewed, rarely only one came across a female driver.
All the female drivers who were interviewed had more than 4.8 ratings. Miriam, who is also a writer, has a rating of 4.9 during the past two years and said that she receives lovely comments from her riders.
Contrary to the belief that driving around male passengers is dangerous, Miriam says that she has never encountered a badly behaved male rider. Rather, women were the amongst the one who she had a bad ride with .
“I am in my late 50s and the women I had issues with were in their early 50s, 6 women 5 separate rides, two were drunk. ” She added, “Everybody asks if me men give me grief, I don’t like people insinuating that it is only the males that are the problem.”
But it is always not about the bad experience, the backseat of a car is where a lot of stories unfolds. Jodie met a cancer patient who had only three more months to live. The incident impacted Jodie’s life. She says that it taught her how to make the best out of every moment.
Not only in Melbourne, there are women across Australia who embrace their identity has a female Uber driver. Ellie Rumble, who lives in Sydney, has been an active Uber driver and loves her job as one. Ellie has taken to social media spheres to share her profession.
When asked about why the drivers had joined Uber, ‘flexibility’ was something was the common thread. The freedom to log in and log off whenever they felt like, let the women work during their spare time to earn some extra money( and who doesn’t love those extra bucks!).As Uber is curated out of the traditionally male-dominated taxi industry and in spite the typecast of women being a bad driver, these women not only drive but manage their work and families at the same time.
These drivers are an empowering example of independent women in today’s world. Pam is a single parent and a foster mother of two children, ten and eleven years old. Pam joined Uber because she wanted to make some extra money, especially being a foster mother where her committing to a 9 to 5 job left her spending less time with her kids so she joined Uber instead.
“People have said to me that I couldn’t do that (drive for Uber), and I always said, why not? What is that which can hold me back?”