Activists should avoid 'tearing each other down', Grace Tame says

"I'm very aware of the fact that it is a great privilege to be heard, and a privilege that very few get, especially our First Nations people, people with disabilities, migrants and other further marginalised people face even greater barriers to justice," Ms Tame said.

"In some cases their paths to justice are impossible, let's be real, and so I don't take this platform lightly at all."

The discussion comes after scrutiny of a campaign launched featuring prominent female leaders such as Ms Tame and Brittany Higgins, with some critics saying too many of the featured women were white.

Last Sunday Ms Tame revealed she had recently visited a hospital emergency room after feeling suicidal in a joint event at the Sydney Opera House with 2015 Australian of the Year Rosie Batty.

"It is important to be able to hold space for criticism and to hold each other to account but ultimately, if we spend a disproportionate amount of time tearing each other down, the people who will benefit from that are the perpetrators. We cannot afford to be doing that," Ms Tame said.

At a Tuesday night panel event for the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 2021 Australian of the year Tame spoke about the criticism at times being "in-defensively cruel" and said the toll on mental health is "hard to relate to" if you have not experienced trauma.

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Joined by Labor Senator Penny Wong, Rebecca Scott and Professor Megan Davis, the group discussed what it means to be women who lead and the importance in advocating for the vulnerable.

Senator Wong said how she found her voice has a lot of layers and that there's "a personal psychological motivation" that she said probably links to her experience of racism.

"Coming here there was a particularly bad neighbour who used to abuse me, so perhaps we should think of her - thanks for the graffiti and the abuse over the fence when I was eight years old," Senator Wong said.

"There are really only two choices when you're confronted with that aren't there? You can either put your head down or you say 'I'm going to do something' and I probably just tried to be the best at most things."

In describing her background, Ms Tame discussed how she was from "a broken family" that was full of love but difficulties in growing up with parents who were separated.

"I didn't really have my own voice and I tolerated a lot of mistreatment," Ms Tame said.

Ms Tame said she was conditioned through constant mistreatment until she found herself "in a tiny office yelling at a paedophile ... telling him I thought that he was a monster," to be making a police statement four days later.

"My fear of upsetting the apple cart died that day, privately. And it sure as hell died publicly, standing next to the prime minister last month," she said.

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