> women don't get 'merit'. They get 'social media' positions. Well, hang on - some do, but not all. I've worked with plenty of very competent women programmer

> women don't get 'merit'. They get 'social media' positions. Well, hang on - some do, but not all. I've worked with plenty of very competent women programmers (Grace Hopper was a woman, after all), BUT they weren't exactly 50% of them. In fact, they were far fewer. I think most people have observed the same thing and the problem comes up when you try to figure out why, since, so far, there have only been two suggested possibilities: 1) women just aren't that interested in programming or, 2) the men are being sexist and keeping them out. Whenever somebody goes off on an "anti-meritocracy" rant, they're almost always _also_ insisting that the second suggestion is the truth, but there's really not that much evidence to support it.