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Do certain kinds of life experience give someone more authority to make an argument?

No. An argument is either good or bad, regardless of the life experience of the person making it. Attacking your opponent's life experience is a sure way to lose a debate.

Here's an example.

The motion is This house would reserve 50% of places on science courses at university for women.

Opposition say, ’The proposal that 50% of places on science courses at university should be reserved for women is wrong because it would be unjust to exclude men who have better grades than women simply because of their gender.’

Proposition say, ’Point of information. As a man, you can have no understanding of the difficulties women face in making a career in science, the discrimination they have encountered for so many years, and therefore you have no right to talk about the injustice suffered by women.’

It is true that women have suffered discrimination in science-related employment for many years; it is true that they still do. This could be a strong argument for the need to introduce quotas to address this injustice. The fact, however, that the person making the argument against quotas is a man has nothing to do with the argument. You cannot say to anyone ‘you cannot make that argument’; you can only say, ‘that argument is a bad argument because …’

So how should Opposition rebut this?

There’s a bad way:

‘Women who say that just want to get an unfair advantage when it comes to university applications.’

This is the equivalent of kicking back at someone who has kicked you. It will end up with both of you being sent off.

And there’s a good way:

’I don’t dispute the injustice that women have suffered, and still do suffer, from discrimination. It is real and it is wrong and it should be tackled. However, introducing a different kind of injustice through the use of quotas is not the way to deal with this problem.’

Here, like a footballer stepping out of the way of the flying boot and regaining possession of the ball, Opposition moves away from the personal attack and gets straight back on to the main point of the argument.

Play the ball, not the player.