From Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Rebekah Jaung, ethnic women in Aotearoa face the double bind of being both too ethnic and not ethnic enough.
Written by Shreya Bakhshi
This article draws on discussions from Session 1 – Representation and Ethnic Women in Politics, of the Ethnic Women in Politics Summit (EWP), September 2025. Ethnic Women in Politics is a 3-year research project led by Dr Rachel Simon-Kumar, Dr Priya Kurian, and their team. The research examines the lived realities of women in New Zealand politics, focusing on those who are non-Pākehā, non-Māori and non-Pasifika, addressing the complex intersections between gender, ethnicity, culture and politics in Aotearoa’s bicultural and multi-ethnic democracy (EWP, n.d).
Politics is inherently performative, defined by factors like party ideologies and electoral systems. After all, membership itself signals alignment between personal values and collective party ideology. Aotearoa is no different when it comes to ‘performing’ politics. When Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, a Māori woman MP, tore up the Treaty Principles Bill in Parliament, it was more an act of justified rebellion than anything else the Privileges Committee deemed it to be (Dunlop, 2025; Farrier, 2024). But how would the outcomes have looked if Maipi-Clarke were not a woman of colour? Deeper questions like this, and more, were raised at the Ethnic Women in Politics Summit, jointly hosted by the University of Auckland and the University of Waikato, which asked, “Where do women stand when politics intersects with ethnicity?” and “What happens when the actions of women politicians are judged against the norms of the majority population we live in?”
The first session, on Representation and Ethnic Women in Politics in Aotearoa, was chaired by Rachel Simon-Kumar and had Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan and former Green Party MP Rebekah Jaung as the panellists. They spoke to the research through their own experiences, emphasising how systemic gender disparities are exacerbated by ethnicity. Reports like Te Iwitanga i roto i te Ratonga Tūmatanui – Ethnicity and the Ethnic Evidence (Ministry of Ethnic Communities, 2024; Public Service Commission, 2024) suggest a growing presence of ethnic women in public roles. But numbers only tell part of the story; retention, especially in politics, adds essential context.
Speaking about political representation, Radhakrishnan, a long-term Labour list MP, spoke about the difficulties of being recognised within a party. According to her, ethnic women lack role models, which creates an initial limitation to their joining the party. Even though ethnic women join political parties on an ideological basis, soon after, they are left scrambling for support. This lack of support often channels them into roles where the performance of their politics is scripted for them to perform their diversity, reducing them to mere symbols. Jaung and Radhakrishnan both agreed, citing their own experiences (EWP Research Findings, 2025).
“There was a huge amount of expectation that you would be an ‘ethnic candidate’, and that you would bring in the ethnic vote,” said Radhakrishnan (EWP Research Findings, 2025). There is an expectation for ethnic women politicians to attend their community events and be the spokesperson for their entire community, which, according to both Radhakrishnan and Jaung, is unrealistic. This expectation was something both women grappled with. Jaung tried to bridge the gap between the Korean-NZ community and politics, but she was more than a ‘Korean-Kiwi woman’ and often had to suppress other parts of herself. Likewise, Radhakrishnan could not speak for every Indian or every Malayali (EWP Research Findings, 2025). Expecting one politician to represent an entire community is not only unrealistic but also impractical.
Performing one’s ethnicity in politics comes with the added burden of being tokenised for characteristics that define your belonging in the space. The Summit made clear that this tokenisation is not abstract; it plays out daily in politics, highlighting the reality on the ground where gendered systemic differences further play into the intersectionality of ethnicity and politics. Ethnic women politicians are then torn between performing ethnic politics for their respective parties and performing politics that they truly believe in. In Jaung’s words, “I was seen as a Korean-Kiwi woman, but there were other aspects to my personality I couldn’t express while performing my ethnicity” (EWP Research Findings, 2025).
Radhakrishnan spoke about how she did not want to be recognised only for her ethnicity, but for her skills and merit as a politician; she soon realised it was a lot more difficult than it seemed. And in Maipi-Clarke’s case, performing her politics came with some serious consequences. There are numerous other examples of ethnic women exiting political spaces for this very reason. It is a battle between joining a party, being tokenised, and being unable to succeed because you were not resilient enough for the real world of politics (Chapman, 2024). This tug of war reflects institutions that pigeonhole ethnic women into their identities rather than positioning them as leaders. They are too ethnic for the mainstream and not ethnic enough for their own communities.
The mixed-member proportional system (MMP) provides a level of respite with its list function; however, being on the list doesn’t guarantee reelection, let alone representation. This leads to candidates questioning their agency since they are already part of a system that has reduced them to symbols. Furthermore, MMP does not provide any safeguards beyond elections, and instead becomes more of a revolving door for ethnic women. The three-year term cycle is not enough time for ethnic women candidates to prove themselves or build a governance track record. Ethnic women may get through the door; however, the political machinery rarely allows them to stay long enough, leading to higher attrition and lower retention rates. Thus, representation without retention becomes tokenism dressed as progress (EWP Research Findings, 2025).
For things to change, the political system needs to change. Unless the system carves out a space for ethnic women politicians, they will continue to remain stuck in the revolving door of the three-year cycle. One way to achieve this, as Radhakrishnan said, is by creating support systems for oneself within the system. Creating representation that uplifts ethnic women and allows them to perform politics beyond the narrow confines of their ethnicity. The need for this change is pertinent, as Aotearoa is a diverse land home to an increasingly diverse population. One that requires leaders who represent them regardless of where they come from.
True representation will only be achieved when the performance of politics moves beyond tokenising ethnicity to embracing it. Maipi-Clarke’s bill tearing was more than just a rebellion; it was proof that when ethnic women stop performing, the system starts punishing.
Note: Malyali is the term used to refer to people from the southern Indian state of Kerala.
References
Chapman, M. (2024). The dramatic exodus of brown women from Parliament is no surprise. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-01-2024/the-dramatic-exodus-of-brown-women-from-parliament-is-no-surprise
Dunlop. (2025). Unprecedented punishment handed to Te Pāti Māori MPs for historic haka in Parliament. Te Ao Māori News. https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2025/06/05/unprecedented-punishment-handed-to-te-pati-maori-mps-for-historic-haka-in-parliament/
Ministry for Ethnic Communities. (2024). The ethnic evidence: Raising the visibility of New Zealand’s ethnic communities. https://www.ethniccommunities.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/63545/mecethnicevidencereport2024.pdf
Public Service Commission. (2024). Workforce data: Ethnicity in the public service. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/research-and-data/workforce-data-diversity-and-inclusion/workforce-data-ethnicity-in-the-public-service/Simon-Kumar, R., & Kurian, P. (2023). Intersectionality and everyday political violence: Narratives from Ethnic Women Politicians (EWP) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Conference, Los Angeles, California, 31 August – 3 September.
