Do your trust women as sources more?

[Hazchem]

Doing the first bit of research for my next essay which is on micro credit in Bangladesh. Which while not a women's issue really has huge impacts on women.
Anyway I noticed as I've been selecting text in my head I'm thinking "That's by a women it should be good."
Does this sort of gender bias happen to anyone else while researching?

I think it depends what the topic is for me. So something like economics or science or natural history or something, I give everyone the time of day. If it's to do with something that women are going to know more about then women, and similarly for men.

FWIW I do think that micro-credit is a women's issue, due to the huge impacts on women that you mention! There are also problems with it which I'm sure you are aware of if you are doing your research

Thinking about the telly here...

I know what you mean though I am always kind of pleased and more open-minded when a woman expert comes on.

I also think (in direct contrast to the sort of people who whine on about "positive discrimination") that if there is a person on who is not white / not a man / presents in some kind of non-standard way then they must really know their stuff to have got to a position where they are invited on to speak about stuff.

I would trust a woman more if she was representative of the group of women under discussion. If I was reading something published by an organisation that had a good reputation on women's rights (say Water Aid), I would trust a male researcher from there over a female writer from an organisation with a poor reputation on women's rights (Amnesty, which has destroyed its reputation recently).

Even if a woman was individually excellent, her ability to accurately and fairly represent women is dependent on the constraints of the ethos of her organisation, academic discipline etc. Similarly I trust geography as a discipline more than some others, if looking at women's rights (I am not a geographer btw).

To clarify, I don't mean that a writer/researcher would be sucked in by the ethos And genuinely believed it. I mean that there is what people want to write and what they know they must write if they don't want to destroy their career.

NiceTabard yes the aim of my essay is to work out the strengths and weaknesses and the the pitfalls of replicating Grameen bank's success. Without much digging my top to reasons are 1) men might still control the money because there has been no structual/cultural changes implemented , and 2) women might not want to be business people instead would like to have a secure waged roles with good employment rights.

almondcake Having just done a bit on NGO's and consultants I can see the institutional bias might help pay the bills.

I'm not a geographer but I've been reading a few papers by geographer recently and they seam to be able to penetrate really interesting social dynamics. It's quite a useful discipline for me to read about as it gives really different ways of seeing things then the ones I have been looking at.

I'm so new to this learning business its good to check I'm not going off to lala land.

This is the article I read here from 2011 I don't know if it has anything in it that is new or useful to you

I don't know if I trust them more but I'm much more interested in what they have to say in general, I think probably because it has become tiring over the years to read and listen to so much male voice droning on everywhere.

In some areas. I agree with the point above that some people may have had to work harder to get where they are and might therefore be assumed to be batter. The converse could apply too - that they are the token [man][woman][black] though too in some context so they are less not more likely to be good. It just depends.

Thanks for the article NiceTabard

Mitchy1nge I think you are right about the interest level maybe it's that more then trust

That's interesting JaneinReading I'm not sure how much affirmative action occurs in academia

I really hope I don't.

I wouldn't want anyone to prejudge the output of the brain based on arrangement of gonads.

It is however OK to prioritise eye-witnesses above other sources, and if gender/sex is relevant to the specific experience then of course that gender/sex is prioritised in that specific context.

No, nor do I trust men more. It depends on who the individual is, and what their motivation and experiences have been. That shapes their viewpoint.
Like with any research, I always want to know who funded it first, and that has an impact on how I view it.