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Maria Thattil's strong stance on cultural awareness: 'There's still a long way to go'

By Lucia Hawley|

Modern society has become very familiar with the term 'woke', which is often used to describe someone who fights against injustice.

Our society's obsession with 'wokeness' can be perceived as being slightly performative and disingenuous, with many people taking issue with how tokenistic our culture has become.

In this week's segment of Talking Honey 9Honey columnist Shelly Horton revealed a controversial question from a reader named Geoff about cultural tokenism.

You can watch the discussion in the clip above.

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Talking honey cultural tokenism
The 9Honey panel, consisting of Shelly Horton, Maria Thattil, John Aiken and Ben Fordham, discuss cultural tokenism. (Nine)

Geoff stirred up a debate after he penned in to the panel, which consisted of relationship expert John Aiken, former Miss Universe Australia and 9Honey columnist Maria Thattil and 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham.?

"It feels like there's a week or a day for everything these days," Geoff wrote. "Pride Week, Reconciliation Week, RUOK Day, International Women's Day... We are now culturally aware, why do we need these wigs to show it?"

?Horton promptly panned to Fordham for a response, coyly remarking, "Ben?"

The 2GB breakfast host playfully replied, "How good is International Women's Day? The best! It is my favorite day of the year!" to which Horton asked, "Why?"

"Oh, no, I'm joking," Fordham shot back.

The radio host explained his response saying, "?I just don't really get involved in the days all that much, don't take it personally... I would have had the same reaction if there was an International Men's Day."

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Talking honey cultural tokenism
Thattil had a different response saying she believed there is still an importance for such days. (Nine)

Thattil had a different response saying that, whilst she understood Fordham's opinion, she believed there is still an importance for such days.

"What I would say to Geoff, is that, for a lot of people, if you look beyond your lived experiences, there are still people impacted by the issues behind these days," she explained.

Thattil took the example of Pride Week, using her own relationship to justify her point.

"I'm dating someone at the moment and up until five years ago, if I wanted to marry her, it would have been criminalised," she said. "And if you're talking about First Nations communities, or reconciliation week, there are people alive today who were forcibly removed from their families.

"It's not about awareness or doing things performatively, but... it's a conversation starter, and also a reminder that for many different issues, there's still a long way to go and work that needs to be done."

Aiken agreed with Thatt?il saying, "If it creates awareness and gets you outside of yourself and in the bigger picture... If something allows or encourages a person to do that, then I'm all for it."

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Fordham said he valued meaningful action over performative action.? (Nine)

Fordham understood the arguments made by other members of the panel, replying, "Fair point."

And whilst the radio host agreed with the panel, he said he valued meaningful action over performative action.?

"Previously in in the city of Sydney, we would fly the Aboriginal flag on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge during NAIDOC week," he explained.

"We've made a decision recently to fly there 365 days a year, which to me is a lot more meaningful than a certain week of the year where we focus on these things."

Watch the rest of the clip to see how the panel responded.?

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