When women riders and drivers told us they wanted more control over how they ride and earn, we listened. That feedback led to Women Preferences, features designed to give women the choice to ride with other women. Since our first pilots last summer, we’ve heard just how much that choice matters—from feeling more comfortable in the back seat to more confident behind the wheel.
You answered your own question. The task for men is to trust women when they describe their experiences, even if it’s completely invisible and alien to their own experiences. Reading detailed firsthand accounts is a good way to build understanding.
That is not a task for men. That is a demand from women. If men can only decide to believe based on the trust they have with the speaker then the speaker must earn their trust. It is not men’s responsibility to become trusting of women, just because women want it. If women want men to trust their words then it’s women’s responsibility to gain men’s trust. It would be profoundly unwise of men to believe without either trust or safety. How often do you ever concern yourself with the safety of men? Because from my experiences, those of my male friends and of the media women like most, women ensuring men feel safe enough to trust is not a concept that rarely ever appears, nevermind it being respected when it does.
I think we all need to do the work to understand the problems faced by different groups. Women need to be doing this too. This isn’t a thread about problems men face, however.
Few of them ever are…which is an example of the point. Stories of men’s experiences are not wanted. So when the topics affecting men are brought up, it’s the closest many get to being heard. Which, of course, they get attacked for. It’s not the place but there is no place so it never gets heard. Seems to me like a little system of censorship and oppression.