[CapacitorSet]

I think the concept is "a purely-meritocratic system cannot be achieved without equal opportunity". This is because one's contribution to governance is proportional to their merit and to their opportunity to express this merit.

For a concrete example, a programmer in Seattle has much higher opportunities than the same programmer in rural Burundi, so he can put the same effort into much more work, and ultimately be much more relevant in supposedly meritocratic governance.

However, the original post is not concerned with opportunity due to geographic location or access to technology, but rather to a bias where code submitted by programmers with a feminine username and profile picture is approved less often than average. Note that the linked study does not refer to Mozilla explicitly, though.

[sanxiyn]

Note that the cited study actually shows PR from women are approved more often than average. Study authors themselves state this.