She posted a comment on her social media focusing on this feedback as "criticism" that came from a sexist guy "of course". It was pretty easy to draw the line to the three panelists, one of whom was a guy. Ouch.
In a previous life, I'd worked in a awesome (female led!) product company. While I had no experience prior to this, I quickly realized that the product itself and its quality etc was almost irrelevant to success, the X and Y mentioned by the male panelist was unfortunately everything, which you'd only know if you were in the space itself. The female led company I worked for was bought out by a (male led) competitor, who then using much strong x and y skills - cleaned up. Company I worked for got basically nothing.
Fast forward - my friends business not doing so great, she asks me for feedback. I said nothing other than enthusiasm. Partly because I was really enthusiastic - she'd put her heart into this project. But her comment on social was in my mind - I had no desire to be next sexist guy "shooting down" an idea
She's out of the business I think mostly. Anyways, this parallels the take of the article.
I asked them what their boss was (female) and their bosses boss (female) and til a few months before, their bosses bosses boss (was female and recently changed to male). Was not a happy look I received.
And 100% there is sexism/racism in workplaces but in my small bubble of the world it feels a reasonable proportion of people put these kind of excuses on their lack of progression over looking inward, but I've tended to work in more progressive environments so maybe I've missed what the wider world is like.