Taxi in Yemen via Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
In recent years, women-only taxi services offering convenient and safe transit have sprung up in major cities all over the globe. These “pink taxis,” driven by women for women, offer a variety of benefits — not only giving women the option of avoiding harassment by male drivers, but also offer employment opportunities, business ownership, and in some cases, empowered transit in funky, candy pink rides decked out with lady magazines, beauty kits, and alarm buttons.
In Beirut, they’re styled as fierce competition to the standard transit system, brought about by one woman’s entrepreneurial vision, and follows similar models set up in Dubai, Cairo and Tehran. In Kuwait and London they’re “women-run businesses” offering “secure modes of transit” helping female customers feel less vulnerable when riding alone with a male driver. Moscow’s taxis are all about girl power, while Mexico City’s pink taxis are fantastically “girly” while helping address the problem of leering male drivers. But Yemen? Yemen doesn’t have a women-only taxi service and that’s because Yemen is too tribal and slow to change, to even consider allowing women to drive taxis.
Well, that’s according to a recent article by Radio Netherlands Worldwide. While initially promising (and Fugees inspiring), the title completely mislead me into thinking a new, pink revolution had already hit the streets of Sana’a: ”Pink taxis for Yemen: ready or not.” Apparently, not.
It didn’t take long to realize the point of the article was not to celebrate a new social and entrepreneurial opportunity for women — but to use the absence of pink taxis as a social commentary, highlighting gender segregation and the restriction of women’s employment due to “tribal tradition.”
The article leads by over-emphasizing Yemen’s culture of gender segregation. “Men and women practically lead separate lives,” with segregated weddings, women-only Internet cafes, and asks, “if so many places have separate facilities for women, then why are there no women-only taxis?” It’s a fair enough question. Taking a taxi with a male driver is awkward for many women and while not every male driver is a predator, there are many documented cases of sexual harassment by taxi drivers in Yemen. So in a country that is so obviously divided upon gender lines, why hasn’t segregation entered into the transportation sector?
January 30, 2013 at 8:49 pm
Turns out female taxi drivers are pretty scarce down here in the US too! One of the most male dominated professions, due to our own “tribal traditions.”
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/article.asp?m=6&e=21
I did find one and only one all female taxi service, serving a limited area, but it looks pretty small:
http://www.ladycabdriver.com
Canada fares slightly better than the US in terms of the percentage of female drivers, but not by much: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/research-stats/taxi.pdf
I couldn’t find an all female canadian cab service though.
January 30, 2013 at 8:54 pm
Forgot to add this one
A female taxi driver in Toronto, Fawzia Karim, speaks out about discrimination she’s faced as a woman in the business: http://torontoobserver.ca/2010/02/18/tales-of-a-female-taxi-driver/
January 30, 2013 at 9:57 pm
Thanks for the links! I saw Fawzia’s story when I was looking into female taxi drivers. She’s what, one of two drivers in her cab company??
Really interesting professional issues. Imagine being an aggressive driver just to disprove the stereotype that “women can’t drive” on top of intimidation by passengers. Interesting as well that female drivers are more likely to pick up smaller fares if it helps someone in need (a woman with groceries who just needs to travel two blocks) — where male drivers will opt for the larger fare.
I think female drivers are a huge benefit to the profession!