This simple game could help you #CheckYourMale privilege
The game is modelled after a viral Tik Tok challenge used to find out people's lived experiences.
Mpho Popps Modikane and his girlfriend Roseann Hall playing the Tik Tok ‘Drop a Finger’ game to highlight male privilege in a time of GBV and femicide | Image: Screenshot (Twitter)
Comedian Mpho Popps Modikane’s rendition of a popular Tik Tok challenge has gone viral. However, instead of participating in the challenge for the fun of it, the comedian used his platform to shed light on the chilling reality of women in South Africa and across the world.
In the game, one or more people stand in front of the camera while the person recording the video asks the participants to put a finger down if something they mention has happened to them or if they’ve done a certain thing.
As Modikane and his girlfriend Roseann Hall participate in the game, the person behind the camera asks: “Drop a finger if you’ve ever had to consider what you’re wearing before going to catch a taxi. Drop a finger if you’ve ever been offered a job in exchange for sexual favours. Drop a finger if you’ve ever been harassed by the police at a roadblock for your number. Drop a finger if you’ve ever thought about or feared being raped.”
By the end of the game, Hall had dropped all her fingers while Modikane had dropped one.
The person behind the camera then said: “If you have any fingers left, that is male privilege.”
Modikane has invited others to play the game and check their male privilege while hopefully getting a better understanding of the conditions women live under.
#CheckYourMalePrivilege This is the reality that women have to face on a day to day basis. We are the problem and we need to stop. #endfemicide #TshegofatsoPule #GenderBasedViolence pic.twitter.com/hPFS3bELA9
— Mpho Popps Modikoane (@MphoPopps) June 17, 2020
This comes as the nation is once again focused on the scourge of femicide as well as gender-based and intimate partner violence and violence against children.
Just this week alone, the bodies of two women were discovered in the South of Johannesburg near the Golden Highway on separate occasions, and the police are currently investigating the death of a one-day-old baby boy whose body was found in the Jukskei River.
READ NEXT: Police blamed for neglecting child abuse case leading to baby’s death
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