Why does it matter what education a person has, besides as an ad-hominem attack, if the facts they use are correct? And for the gender of the person advancing

Why does it matter what education a person has, besides as an ad-hominem attack, if the facts they use are correct? And for the gender of the person advancing an argument to matter seems only to strongly confirm the memos points about discrimination against men. Counter-factuals are always difficult, but it seems unlikely that we would ever have heard about this memo, much less seen its author fired, had the exact same text been written by a woman.