Women Grab the Wheel in World’s Least-Diverse Occupation

Nina Mizrahi has grown accustomed to the insults and the mockery. When she queues for passengers at taxi stands in northern Israel, fellow drivers ask what she’s doing in “their” business. At a local dispatch station, she frequently hears lewd comments about female passengers. A WhatsApp group for drivers brims with sexual innuendo. “I want women to know that there’s an option, the choice to have a female driver,” says Mizrahi, who in 2017 bought a taxi to offer rides to women and children. “A taxi is a very intimate place,” she says. “It’s you and the driver, usually closed windows. Many women don’t feel comfortable.”

The driver’s seat of a taxi remains an almost exclusively male domain. In New York City, just 1% of yellow cab drivers are female. In England’s black cab and private-hire market, that number is 2%. Gett Inc., a ride-hailing service in Britain, Israel, and Russia, says women account for about 4% of its drivers—but more than half its passengers. “The job has been perceived as being more ‘male’ for years,” says Keren Fanan, Gett’s chief commercial officer. “It’s been this way forever.”