In my life, this has always felt like an important asset. I started observing it happen to me in high school, and it's sort of continued through life. (Surely it was happening long before that, but I didn't notice when I was much younger.) At this point I can see it happening in realtime... and I still appreciate it.

I shudder to think how life would feel as a child and young adult if people assumed incompetence rather than competence. Getting credit that you didn't earn, at least for me, is one of the most powerful ways to get me to strive to earn it retroactively by giving thoughtful effort.

Can anyone think of an explanation why?

I know there were special rules in place for NSA stories. If the same rule applies to stories on privilege or equality in tech, I'd be worried.

Making a claim doesn't automatically make it true, even if we're talking about privilege. Yes, I know that the believers of privilege always say that 'privilege exists but you just don't notice it'. As a believer of the scientific method I actually need some empirical evidence to believe in something.

In effect, the article states that because of privilege a white male who has a lot of experience should be able to get a job easily, since "they look the part". Empirically that claim doesn't apply to me. You can "hand-wave" about it being even harder if I was a woman, but it's still just hand-waving unless there's some evidence to back it up.

In addition, I notice any privilege I get. Besides, women programmers have some privilege over me: they don't need to waste one year in forced labour. All women are basically one year ahead of me because of military service.