Different genders, different expectations

During the decades laws have changed and conditions have been arranged for lesser differences between men and women. However, our attitudes and expectations towards the genders have remained the same in a bigger degree, no doubt. Some people claim they don´t let their gender expectations affect their decisions, for example in work situations. Sadly, the truth is that they are affected quite a bit. We can also observe how boys and girls choose different paths of education and work.

Boys and girls are forced to make decisive choices from early on in their lives. When choosing what high school you want to apply for, you in a way limit your possibilities for later in life. It is not very typical for girls to educate themselves as contractors, and this is much due to the expectations that are dwelling over our heads.

The work towards gender equality has come far in Norway, but there are for example several scenarios of promotions, where women have been systematically turned down. Statistics show that men dominate the leader positions the industry of commerce, and this illustrates the different expectations between men and women. If a man was to choose between hiring a man and a woman with similar records and merits, it is still more likely that he would hire the man.

“I agree to these terms”

The internet offers an immense amount of information and possibilities for you. What many people have failed to realize is that their activity on the internet leaves them very vulnerable to exploit. When you upload something to the internet, it is likely to be copied into several other sites within minutes, so you can never be sure of where your digital footprints are.

It is becoming more and more common for websites to force you to plot in your personal information to gain access to their sites. It seems like such an insignificant detail, that we don’t care to consider how it may affect us. Surely we expect from most websites to not exploit our personal information, but there are some that will take benefit from it, and they know exactly how to get away with it. By deliberately making you agree to endlessly long “Terms of service” they can easily fool you into letting them use your personal details.

Another risk when signing up for an internet service or community lies within the presence of the information itself. There are those who know how to gain access to whatever it may be that is on the internet, and if your personal details are spread all over the place, there really isn’t too much you can do about it. “Hackers” as they are popularly called, have caused massive breaches in confidential internet sources, and some of these incidents have had very serious consequences. In 2011 Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple ind. was in hospital due to cancer. A group of hackers gained access to Apples facebook account, and announced that Steve Jobs had passed. Steve Jobs was in fact still alive, though he died not long after, but the false rumors that he had died, caused the Apple stock to drop considerably.

Even though a lot of what is mentioned seems like natural precautions, people, and especially youth, waive their private details around in ignorance. The most probable reason to this is that we are not well enough aware of the dangers that are masked behind the vast amount of compelling proposals floating around the internet.