Why Men are Quoted More Often

Because we're arrogant:

Research shows that men tend to be more confident in their opinions and less worried about being publicly wrong. That can make them more willing to make bold predictions and sweeping arguments. That's not necessarily the way to ensure accuracy — it's called "overconfidence bias" for a reason — but it does make for entertaining quotes and lively panels. Women, by contrast, tend to be less overconfident in their expertise and thus less willing to make sharp and sweeping arguments in public.

That's not to say that women are making the wrong choice by being careful about their public statements. It's likely, after all, that women need to work harder and be more careful about errors in order to be taken as seriously as their male peers because of biases like the citation gap described above. Being extra careful makes women less likely to be caught saying something incorrect in public, so it might, on balance, be worth it. But it also means they're less likely to give pithy quotes than men who don't have to be so careful.

That's a dynamic I've encountered in my own reporting again and again: Women I interview are much more cautious about hewing closely to their own research and area of expertise, and much more likely to insist on speaking off the record when making a controversial or critical argument. My male sources, on the other hand, are much more willing to freely hold forth on whatever I ask about, confident that whatever opinions they might have are useful enough to share with my readers.

The result is often that female experts give me little information beyond what I already know from reading their published work — and that the men's quotes are the ones that survive final edits.

This comes from journalist Amanda Taub, who says she has been making a conscious effort for years to interview and quote more women, but that this has had little impact on her published work.

I would say that Hillary Clinton is a good case of what Taub is saying: nobody in politics knows more than she does, but she very often cannot find a clear and pithy way to express her knowledge. She never gives an answer without at least one qualifier and sometimes there are more qualifiers than all the other words put together. Many people find the result weaselly and off-putting; why can't she just give a straight answer? But maybe the whole fascination with "straight answers" to what are often very complex questions is a masculine bad habit we would be better off without.