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How will you score? A new social rating system might be in our near future

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STATS-SA reports that single mothers run most households in South Africa. The numbers revealed that 31% of women who have had children are in fact married but receive little financial or emotional support from the fathers. And more than 50% of women who gave birth are single.

Outside of the financial strain, being a single mother can also be emotionally taxing. You worry about your children alone. You take care of their health alone. You cry alone without a support structure when something goes wrong.

There’s always a nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you will be judged for being incompetent when and if you ask for help. In some cases, a lot of single mothers even suffer post-partum depression alone.

READ MORE: Here's how millennials feel about motherhood

These variables are more than enough to deal with, so is a social tax really something that needs to be added to that equation?

The” Big Brother is watching you” adage might seem like a far-fetched idea for a technocratic future society but as it turns out, countries like China, are planning to roll out a social rating score for their citizens which will impact their ease of life in many instances. 

In this social-status-driven universe, people who are nice – or act nice, are given a high rating.

The scoring system would work a lot like the Black Mirror episode, which aired not so long ago. The first episode of season three features an eye-embedded app that lets people rate their interactions with one another and share status updates.

It's like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter combined, but the effects are devastating. In this social-status-driven universe, people who are nice – or act nice, are given a high rating.

READ MORE: What if people rated each other like they would their Uber driver?

But if people are deemed to act negatively, they face lower review by their fellow citizens. A low score basically equals a lesser life: Terrible job prospects, social shunning and a variety of other punishments. It might sound ridiculous but it’s fast becoming a reality.

The Chinese government will implement a system that connects people’s financial, social, political and legal credit. A low score in one area adversely affects all other areas. Why did I open this piece with single mothers?

A single mother (and women in general) earn up to two thirds less of what men earn.

Well, because they are the ones who stand to suffer the most. Already, they stand on a back leg socially and economically because of the norms of society, but with a citizen scoring system in place, their lives are about to become more difficult.

Notions of single mothers (married, divorced or unmarried) being undesirable and “lesser humans” are plain and simply put quite archaic, but they still exist, and with a system like this in place, they’re about to stay put for a lot longer.

A single mother (and women in general) earn up to two thirds less of what men earn. They are seen as high risk clients at financial institutions, so their opportunities for loans to start business and become well-oiled-economic machines is almost zero to none.

READ MORE: Women’s hidden load

The opportunities for single mothers to receive further education is drastically less than single fathers who want to pursue the same goals purely because single father’s are more likely to have other “maternal” support.

They work more hours, often have more than one job and have a lower social capital. If we plug all these variables onto a social score scale, things only get worse. One factor affects the next – and, and, and. Further perpetuating the disadvantage that single mothers have in society.

You'll be shut out higher-starred hotels and restaurants and will be rejected by travel agents.

Single mothers by default then, are low scorers. What does that actually mean?

According to the Chinese policy at least, these are the effects listed so far:

• You won't be considered for public office
• You'll lose access to social security and welfare
• You'll be frisked more thoroughly when passing through Chinese customs
• You'll be shut out of senior level positions in the food and drug sector
• You won't get a bed in overnight trains
• You'll be shut out higher-starred hotels and restaurants and will be rejected by travel agents
• Your children won't be allowed into more expensive private schools

Those with high rankings however can make rentals without deposits, skip lines at hospitals and of course, a high score means better chance of getting a potential partner with an equally high status.

READ MORE: Would you date you?

Technology is supposed to aid in the advancement of humanity, but in this case, it seems that this misogynist train will only make us travel to the past faster than ever before.

The more things change for women, the more they stay the same. Or rather, the worse they become it seems.

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
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