Elke Kraemer

The through-line

Across these posts, Elke Kraemer keeps returning to one point: the gender gap in tech is not a talent problem, it is a measurement and behavior problem. She repeatedly picks apart studies to show that the mechanisms companies trust most, meritocracy, credentials, "objective" platforms, are the ones quietly working against women [6][9][5][4]. Over the course of the month covered here, the argument moves from community-building and partnership posts about Clusity's events and hiring needs [15][14][13][8][7] toward increasingly research-driven, almost mythbusting posts that question the premises companies use to explain the gap away [3][4][5][6][9]. The throughline is that fixing this is framed as a business and data exercise, not a fairness favor: "wouldn't that be a great and easy way to start?" she asks about CEOs simply knowing their own numbers [9].

On the meritocracy myth

Kraemer leans hard on the MIT study by Emilio J Castilla and Stephen Benard, in which 445 managers evaluated identical CVs for "Michael" and "Patricia," and the only variable was how the company described its own fairness. "Companies that are proud to call themselves a meritocracy are often the ones where women get paid less for the same work" [6][9]. Her point is not that people are acting in bad faith: "Not because HR or managers have bad intentions. But because they believe they're fair. That belief is stopping people from checking their data" [6][9]. She treats the label "meritocracy" itself as a trigger, not a safeguard.

On feminine behaviour and visibility

Looking at 1.6 million GitHub developers and 30,000 Behance designers, two platforms with very different gender ratios, she notes that "being a woman does not predict success on these platforms" [5]. What does predict less success is "behaving in ways that are seen as 'feminine' (collaborating, commenting, mentoring, certain specialisations)" [5]. She flags that this gets relabeled by HR as "soft skills," and quantifies it: "60 to 90% of women's disadvantage in visibility, success and survival on these two platforms comes down to 'feminine behaviour'" [5]. Her conclusion is blunt: "women aren't p[roblem]", the behavior, not the gender, is being penalized [5].

On the business case for a wider talent pool

Kraemer repeatedly ties the diversity argument to labor-market scarcity rather than idealism. Citing Statbel, she notes that while vacancies are falling almost everywhere, "de vacaturegraad in ICT" keeps rising, "Terwijl bijna elke sector afkoelt" [10]. Her challenge to employers: "als je al moeite hebt om de 'traditionele' kandidaat te vinden, waarom vis je dan nog steeds in dezelfde, te kleine vijver?", noting that roughly "1 op 5 tech-profielen is een vrouw" [10]. She reinforces this with SD Worx research showing that IT, digital and data make up "32% van alle vacatures" among large Belgian companies planning to hire, adding that "specifieke acties naar vrouwen in tech" are "vaak over het hoofd gezien" [14]. She extends the same logic to credentials: none of the CEOs running "vier van de belangrijkste AI-bedrijven" (Suleyman, Amodei, Karp, Altman) have a STEM degree, yet "98% of the highest paying AI jobs require a bachelor's degree or higher" the "normal way," a gate that keeps women at "26% of new AI hires" [4].

On inclusion as practice, not a poster line

She distinguishes stated values from lived culture, citing Deloitte's finding that "79% of organisations say a strong sense of belonging matters" while "only 17% actually do something about it," and McKinsey's finding that included employees are "3.5x more likely to stay engaged" [13]. Her prescription is experiential rather than declarative: workshops where "people don't just talk or write about inclusion, they feel what it's like to be included, or left out," so that "'inclusive culture' stops being a line on a poster" [13]. The same instinct shows up in her response to CEOs asking her to "help us find more senior women for our management team": she redirects the question toward internal feedback culture as "the missing link to more women in management" [12].

Takeaways

• Before hiring initiatives, check whether leadership actually knows its own gender numbers, since most CEOs Kraemer talks to don't [9].
• Drop "meritocracy" language in company materials with caution: the MIT Castilla/Benard study found it correlates with lower bonuses for equally-performing women [6][9].
• Audit platforms and processes for penalizing "feminine behaviour" like collaborating and mentoring, since that behavior, not gender itself, drives most of the visibility gap on GitHub and Behance [5].
• Treat rising ICT vacancy rates as a reason to recruit outside the "traditional" candidate pool rather than compete harder for the same one, since only about one in five tech profiles is a woman [10].
• Question degree-based AI hiring gates: none of the four major AI company CEOs cited hold a STEM degree, yet 98% of top-paying AI roles require one, which disproportionately locks out women [4].
• If asked to find more senior women for management, look first at feedback culture rather than the talent pipeline [12].