Naming the Pattern: White Maternalism, White Fragility, and Practicing Grounded Empathy as Tangata Tiriti

Dec 2

3 min read

Empathy has always been central to my work. But over time, I’ve had to confront how, for white women like me, empathy is never neutral. In Aotearoa, where colonisation and inequity continue to structure everyday life, empathy sits inside broader dynamics shaped by white saviourism, white maternalism, and white fragility.

These forces influence how Pākehā women are taught to show up in social justice spaces, often positioning us as “the caring ones,” “the ones who know better,” or “the ones who help.” This history is part of our inheritance as tangata Tiriti, and failing to examine it risks replicating harm even when our intentions are good.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years is that using empathy well as a white woman requires a foundation of critical self-awareness and structural understanding. It means recognising where my own privilege gives me unearned access and choosing to use that access not to centre myself, but to challenge power structures and open doors that others have been locked out of.

In the DEI space, many women with less privilege have made this point powerfully:

“We don’t need mentorship. We need sponsorship. Get us into the room, and we’ll take it from there.”

That reshaped my practice. It taught me that allyship isn’t about guiding or uplifting people from a position of benevolence, it’s about leveraging my privilege to shift conditions, create access, and remove barriers so others can lead on their own terms.

This is where what could be called grounded empathy comes in—not a new theory or something I’m claiming to coin, but simply common sense applied with humility.

Grounded empathy is empathy that is:

self-reflective, not self-centred
structural, not saviouristic
accountable, not performative
aligned with Te Tiriti obligations, not just personal intentions

For me, practicing grounded empathy looks like:

checking in regularly with BIPOC colleagues and trusted professionals whose lived expertise challenges my blind spots
seeking cultural supervision when I feel uncertain or when emotional reactions could cloud my judgement
setting boundaries to avoid over-functioning, rescuing, or replicating white maternalism
acting when my privilege gives me access—not to speak for others, but to make space, shift power, or challenge systems
listening without defensiveness when I get it wrong, which I inevitably do

This reflective discipline is necessary, because when empathy is misunderstood or worse, weaponised. The consequences can be deeply damaging.

And that is what I and others have experienced over the years.

Instead of being recognised as a strength tied to relational integrity, my empathy was reframed as naivety, over-identification, or emotional overreach. When I advocated for fairness, accountability, or the centering of marginalised voices, my grounded empathy was twisted into a narrative of “rescuing” or “overstepping.”

This pattern is familiar in white-led or white-dominant structures:

When Pākehā women use empathy to challenge power, we are punished.
When we align with power, we often harm others.

In one case, empathy became something far more dangerous: a tool others weaponised against me. The language of care, well-being, and trauma-informed practice was used to mask ego-driven leadership, silence dissent, and manipulate reality. What was presented as professionalism was, in truth, gaslighting.

This blog is not simply about my experience—it is about the wider patterns many of us encounter in values-driven mahi across Aotearoa: