Victoria Takes the Wheel | Dana, Israel

Victoria worked as a bus driver for Israel’s largest public transportation company for 20 years. Out of 3500 drivers working at the time, she was one of the company’s six female drivers. She missed the big vehicle and even back in the day, she had adjusted her method by keeping her eyes at the passenger’s hand level so as to never create eye contact as well as avoid any chance of conversation. She had never been much of a talker since, the road, she says, gives her all the thrills she needs. But, you have probably all heard a story or two where a woman needs to take extra protection, especially in this world… Victoria is a hard worker. Alongside the app, Get-Taxi, which employs over 6000 drivers in Israel, Victoria’s cab is owned by a contractor and he provides work for her. “I am here for work,” she says. “When I worked for the bus company, they wanted me to leave with no privileges. It took a great deal of time as well as effort till I managed to break out with what I deserve.” Now, she is the master of her own time, taking any drive she wants. Victoria also works with the organization MONITA, which was established by another woman with an intriguing story of a woman in a man’s world. This woman is called Ora Levy. As she takes her old cab license out of the storage, Levy tells me that she has retired to the world of unemployment. But in her eyes, working for a cab station in her hometown of Ashkelon was a rough experience. She had to push her way through to get equal work and sometimes, depending on who was in charge that day, she was asked to do inappropriate things. Things that she had neither intended, nor ever wanted to do. Yet, it was this sort of story and experience that prompted Levy to fund the all female cab company, MONITA, which offers female only taxi services. MONITA symbolizes a global phenomena of the modern day—women creating solutions for their fellow women. From London to Mexico, women around the world feel the need to protect themselves from potential harassment, and female entrepreneurs are now offering them a fair solution. “We offered Get-Taxi the solution of having a female driver option, for that need exactly, but they did not cooperate,” says Levy, who is currently working on developing an independent app for MONITA. As for the bigger question of why women feel uncertain enough to develop a separate society, this remains unsolved. *Interested in learning more about what MONITA is all about? CLICK HERE