Uber on Monday announced it has expanded its popular “Women Preferences” feature across the United States and major cities worldwide, as the ride-sharing giant faces mounting lawsuits over alleged sexual assaults involving its drivers.

The global ride-sharing service says the expansion launch – meant to coincide with International Women’s Day – was designed to give women “more control over how they ride and earn.”

“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,” Uber said.

Piloted in Los Angeles, Detroit, and its home base, San Francisco, in 2025, the feature was first created and tested in Saudi Arabia after women there were finally granted the right to drive in 2019, the company said.

Since then, Women Preferences is now offered in 40 countries, including Canada and Mexico, and starting Monday, the feature expanded from the 26 American cities it had piloted last November to include riders and drivers across the US.

Besides the US and Saudi Arabia, Women Preferences for both riders and drivers is only offered in five other countries: Germany, France, Portugal, Brazil, and Spain.

How Uber’s “Women Preferences” feature works

Women Preferences in the United States is available to both female riders and female passengers.

Uber’s women passengers will now have the option to:

• Request a ride on-demand by selecting Women Drivers when ordering a trip.
• Reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance
• Set a preference for a woman driver in their app settings.

Uber does note that even with setting a “women driver” preference, being matched with a female driver is not always guaranteed and will depend on driver availability.

Women drivers in the US will also now have the option to request female passengers only.

“In cities where teen accounts are available, teens and their guardians can also request women drivers — both for on-demand trips and when reserving in advance,” Uber says.

Safety complaints continue to shadow the platform

Uber is facing myriad lawsuits accusing the ride-share of being complicit in ignoring thousands of complaints regarding sexual assault and harassment by its male drivers.

Still, the roll-out response has seemed positive so far, although comments were turned off on its YouTube video promoting the Women Preference feature.

"Congrats on getting this finally up! A step forward in women's safety!" one user posted on X.

Congrats on getting this finally up! A step forward in women's safety!

undefined IBetYouWontDoIt (@IBetYouWntDoIt) March 9, 2026

According to the law firm Heninger Garrison Davis LLC, nearly 3,000 incidents were reported between 2021 and 2022, including rapes and aggravated assaults.

Uber is accused of knowing of drivers “assaulting female passengers since 2014, and yet failed to take action to prevent ongoing attacks,” the firm said.

A class action lawsuit filed in 2022 on behalf of 550 women in California alleges that Uber passengers in multiple US states “were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, sexually battered, raped, falsely imprisoned, stalked, harassed, or otherwise attacked by Uber drivers with whom they had been paired through the Uber application.”

Even more disturbing, a New York Times investigation published last August found Uber received over 400,000 sexual assault or misconduct reports in the US between 2017 and 2022 – about one incident every eight minutes.”

While the company did not directly address the sexual assault allegations in Monday’s blog post, Uber said it will ”continue listening, building, and increasing choice for women around the world.”

A survey done last year by Uber revealed that about one in five of the company’s US drivers are female.

Meanwhile, rival Lyft debuted its own female-only "Women+Connect" rider feature last March. The Lyft feature, unlike Uber's Women Preferences, also includes options for non-binary individuals.

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