There’s been a growing backlash against workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and it’s often framed as a return to “meritocracy.” Companies have rolled back programs that support women and underrepresented employees while insisting that hiring and promotions should be based solely on performance and qualifications.

Much of this push has come from the Trump administration. One executive order targeting diversity programs was titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” while President Trump has declared , “Our country is going to be based on merit again.” The underlying assumption behind these messages is that if success or failure is primarily determined by individual talent and effort, then everyone gets an equal shot.

In her new book, The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up—and Then Pushes Them Down , journalist Stefanie O’Connell argues that meritocracy is a myth that helps keep men in power. She challenges a range of myths about why women struggle to reach the top levels of corporations. Pushing back against these myths, not working harder, is one of the keys to creating more opportunities for women, she argues.

The Meritocracy Myth and The Paradox of Meritocracy

Research consistently shows that workplace promotion and pay decisions are influenced by bias rather than being based purely on merit. O’Connell points to studies demonstrating that equally qualified men and women are often evaluated differently, even when their credentials and performance are identical. As an example, in one hiring study, researchers varied only the gender of job applicants and found that male candidates received significantly more callbacks than female candidates with identical qualifications. That’s not meritocracy.

Ironically, managers who most strongly believe their organizations are meritocracies are often the most biased in their decision-making. This phenomenon is called “ the paradox of meritocracy .”

O’Connell explains the logic behind the paradox: when people assume they are being objective and fair, they are less likely to scrutinize how bias may be influencing their decisions. But when they acknowledge how bias can influence their decisions, managers are more likely to actively guard against these biases. So, ultimately, awareness of our potential biases makes us less biased.

For those who believe workplaces operate as meritocracies, women’s inability to advance is often seen as evidence of flaws in women’s choices or performance. Women are told they do not negotiate enough, lack confidence, avoid leadership, pull back after having children or are not ambitious enough to reach the highest levels of power. In other words, the problem is with the women themselves.

Yet, women often begin their careers with ambition levels equal to or higher than men’s. But women who speak up or negotiate aggressively are more likely to face what O’Connell calls the “ambition penalty,” where assertiveness and ambition trigger backlash rather than reward. Interestingly, these same aggressive traits that can backfire for women tend to be celebrated in male employees.

O’Connell says that salary negotiation is one of the clearest examples of how this plays out at work. Women have long been told that their lack of negotiation skills is a key contributor to the gender pay gap. So, they’ve been encouraged to negotiate more assertively and ask for more money.

Yet O’Connell describes study after study showing that women do negotiate but are more likely to face penalties just for asking. One study of over 2,500 negotiators found that women were just as likely as men to negotiate and applied similar negotiating strategies to men. Yet the researchers found that women faced more backlash, particularly when the women had a strong alternative offer.

“Women were less likely to get what they asked for, not because they weren’t being assertive but because they were,” she explains in the book. Women are penalized for the assertiveness that’s required to be a good negotiator. Men are not.

If we assume society offers equal opportunity, women’s slower career advancement after becoming mothers is often interpreted as evidence that women are simply choosing family over ambition. Workplace inequality then becomes easier to ignore because women are just choosing different paths.

O’Connell argues that the research tells a different story. Access to affordable childcare, paid parental leave and flexible work arrangements significantly increases women’s ability to remain in the workforce.

When those supports disappear, women are often forced to scale back, and their workforce participation declines. O’Connell argues that the lack of support places a disproportionate burden on mothers, who are still expected to shoulder more of the responsibility for childcare than fathers. “The constraints that this puts on women, especially the most marginalized, then get reframed as choices,” she explains.

Outside-In versus Inside-Out Change

All of these myths suggest that the system is fair, and the problem is with women’s choices or performance. They convey the message that if women want to succeed, it’s women who need to change. O’Connell proposes that instead of asking women to change, we should encourage them to fight back against unequal systems.

She suggests that women need to work on “outside-in” change rather than “inside-out” change. The “inside-out” approach assumes that women need to better themselves in order to succeed. Women have been encouraged to follow this strategy for years, but because the women aren’t the issue, self-improvement alone cannot solve the problem.

The problem, instead, requires an “outside-in” approach that focuses on changing the systems and myths that continue to penalize women. This isn’t something that women take on solo, but requires collective action.

She encourages women to work together to share information about pay and promotions, advocate for workplace policies such as transparency and flexibility, and question norms that reward men and penalize women for the same behaviors. Most importantly, she encourages women to stop internalizing unequal outcomes as evidence that they are the problem and to recognize how institutional and cultural structures shape who gets the best opportunities.