The response to a woman’s Uber story reveals a depressing 2024 truth
When a young woman shared her scary experience online, she didn’t expect the response to be so “disgusting”.
Lifestyle
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When Gemma Dimond shared her scary Uber experience online, she was horrified to be confronted with how quickly women aren’t believed in Australia.
The 31-year-old beauty writer shared an unnerving experience she had with the popular rideshare app.
Alarmingly, the driver cancelled the official Uber trip while she was in the car, instead asking her to just transfer him the money when they arrived at her destination.
Worried that this would mean their location wouldn’t be tracked on the app, she quicky lied - saying she needed to pay for the trip on a work card - then got out of the car.
Ms Dimond previously told news.com.au that she didn’t think the driver was trying to hurt her, but that he probably just wanted to get the full fare without having to give Uber a cut, but as a woman, it was an unsettling situation.
“Being a woman means I’m pretty constantly on high alert, whether that be in a ride-share vehicle or walking down the street alone. Knowing my ride wouldn’t have been tracked made me feel pretty unsafe,” she said.
Ms Dimond’s TikTok on the issue amassed more than 200,000 views.
While other women commented and shared they’d had similar experiences with Uber drivers, she also became inundated with comments from people telling her she was making the whole story up.
Ms Dimond then posted a follow-up video, saying she’d received “disgusting” comments, and everything from her appearance to the authenticity of her story was questioned.
While she could handle the unfair feedback, she worried it would deter other women from speaking up about times they felt unsafe because they didn’t want to “cope” with a negative response.
Ms Dimond told news.com.au that 80 per cent of the cruel messages she was receiving were from men that were bluntly calling her a liar.
“Most were claiming I was lying for clout, a number commented on my appearance in a way that made me feel really uncomfortable,” she said.
“A lot of the messages and comments used some pretty aggressive expletives which I thought was an odd way to respond to someone sharing a pretty innocuous story about an Uber driver.”
The writer said that the messages were “confronting,” and even though she has a thick skin, they were hard to swallow.
She’d posted essentially a PSA about women’s safety online and been met with people calling her a liar.
“I’d say I’m generally not perturbed by strangers on the internet, but it made me sad for other women. No wonder so few women feel they can speak up when they feel unsafe,” she said.
“If I’m being questioned so loudly about such a tame story, all things considered, what hope do we have in being believed about something more serious?”
Ms Dimond said this isn’t the first time she’s shared something and hasn’t been believed. She wasn’t exactly surprised by the response but it does concern her that even when multiple women speak out about an issue their all branded as liars.
It speaks to a culture where the default is not to believe women and shame women who do speak out about issues.
“What was surprising, however, was to see people doubting a story that has clearly happened to so many women, as evidenced by the hundreds of comments. Is the assumption that every single one of us is lying?” she said.
“It was a bit of a reminder that you can’t really win. Several people were criticising me for ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing,’ and pausing to gather my thoughts, which they said was a sign of lying.”
Ms Dimond said any hesitance was due to being thrown by the experience and trying to gather her thoughts.
“The reality is that I recorded and posted the video the second I got home, when I was still a bit rattled, because I wanted to get it out there as soon as possible in case another woman found themselves in the same position,” she said.
“I can absolutely guarantee you that if I’d waited until the next morning, set up the camera nicely and got through the story without pausing; I would have been called a liar for it all looking scripted. You can’t win.”
A spokesman from Uber responded to news.com.au last week and said that “Fraudulent activity such as driver-partners encouraging riders to pay for a trip outside of the Uber platform is a clear breach of Uber’s Community Guidelines and this kind of behaviour can result in driver-partners permanently losing access to the app.”
Originally published as The response to a woman’s Uber story reveals a depressing 2024 truth
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