JAMIL F. KHAN | Women-only ride options criticised as ‘Pink Tax’ on safety in e-hailing

Lately e-hailing services are introducing women-only options, which allow women riders to select women drivers for their trips. Nobody needs to ask why this was necessary unless you are living under a rock or wilfully ignorant of the scourge of gender-based violence perpetrated by men in every sphere of society.

These services prioritise the safety of women, who have experienced harassment and violence from male drivers.

However, in the case of Uber, the company has also made sure that laying a complaint directly with a human is near impossible because they’ve constructed systems that avoid actual conversations and human experiences.

I learnt this a few years ago when I was refused entry into a vehicle by an Uber driver who had a problem with my feminine appearance and told me he doesn’t take “people like me” in his car.

Uber placated me with apologies and platitudes that led to no form of accountability for the driver - which is a common experience for many users of the service.

This “ground-breaking” new safety measure completely bypasses the responsibility to hold violent drivers accountable while appearing to care.

The e-hailing services are simply following a common practice across business platforms that invent services and products targeted towards women at sometimes an elevated cost, which sends the message that women must pay extra if they want to enjoy the benefits that men already have.

This is called “pink tax”.

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Pink tax refers to the consistent pattern in which products and services marketed to women cost more than comparable ones marketed to men.

It isn’t an actual tax, but a market and policy phenomenon shaped by gendered pricing structures, discriminatory norms, and the politics of consumption.

At the product level, the pink tax shows up in everyday goods: razors, deodorant, clothing, toys, even dry-cleaning. Women’s versions often have slight cosmetic differences - colour, scent, packaging - while performing the same function as “men’s versions.”

As shown across many studies, this results in women paying more over a lifetime for equivalent essentials, including necessities tied to gendered expectations (menstrual products, makeup, hair care). Menstrual products also face separate political battles around taxation, classification, and access, highlighting how gendered costs accumulate structurally.

Politically, pink tax sits at the intersection of gender inequality, consumer rights, and labour economics. It is shaped by gendered marketing that constructs women as niche consumers and drives price segmentation.

Wage inequality, which makes higher costs more burdensome for women. Regulatory gaps that allow gender-based price discrimination to persist. Cultural norms that position femininity as requiring additional products, grooming, and upkeep.

Some governments have outlawed gender-based price discrimination or eliminated taxes on menstrual products, but the broader politics remain tied to how societies value - or exploit - gendered identities.

The pink tax persists because it is embedded in deeper systems: the commercialisation of femininity, assumptions about who does care work, and the economic penalties women face simply for existing in gendered markets. With Uber, we can now add safety to the list of services that incur economic penalties applied to women’s existence.

In a country known as a gender-based violence capital of the world, where women and children are moving targets at the hands of violent men who believe it is their sociocultural right to dominate those deemed weaker, this taxed service is an egregious exploitation of gender oppression.

Instead of investing the vast resources Uber extracts from a global client base into evidence-based interventions that can actually tackle violence and truly protect women, and all people, from patriarchal violence, they sell safety at a premium.

This also sends the clear message that if you cannot afford to pay for your safety, you will have to gamble with your life and take your chances. Not to mention that the first intervention would be to believe clients when they bring safety issues to their attention and prosecute and remove violent drivers from their systems.

At its core, the women‑only service is not a solution to violence but a monetisation of it. It reframes safety as a commodity rather than a right, and in doing so, it entrenches the very inequalities it claims to address.

When a corporation positions itself as a protector while profiting from the vulnerabilities produced by patriarchy, it participates in the same ecosystem of harm, only with better branding.

Safety becomes something to be purchased rather than guaranteed, and the burden to pay for it is placed squarely on those already disproportionately affected by gendered violence. This is not innovation; it is exploitation.

What this moment reveals, again, is how gender oppression is not only social and cultural but economic. Women and gender‑diverse people are told, implicitly and explicitly, that their survival depends on their ability to pay for protections from men.

This logic mirrors the broader pink tax: the quiet, relentless inflation of the cost of living under conditions of femininity. Whether it is the cost of deodorant, healthcare, or now transport, the message is clear: gender inequality is profitable, and corporations are willing to extract every cent possible from its endurance.

These pricing practices are choices, just as it is a choice every time Uber fails to remove dangerous drivers, ignores reports of harassment, or fails to build systems rooted in care rather than cost‑saving.

It is a choice to invest in a marketing strategy instead of meaningful safety infrastructure. It is a choice to shift responsibility onto users rather than confronting the cultures of impunity within the company and the broader transport sector.

And it is a choice that tells us everything about corporate priorities in a world where marginalised communities are both underserved and overcharged.

If these companies were serious about safety, they would start by reckoning honestly with the violence their platforms enable and the gendered power dynamics that shape them.

They would listen to survivors. They would redesign systems around human experience, not profit margins. And understand that safety cannot be sold, it must be built, protected, and guaranteed.

Until then, the women‑only option remains what it is: not a lifeline, but a levy on fear; not progress, but a pink‑washed reminder that even in danger, women are expected to pay more for less.

Dr Jamil F. Khan is an award-winning author, doctoral critical diversity scholar, and research fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study.