This complaint seems like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good - the author took the data she had, applied it in what sounds like the best way related to the problem, and reported the outcome. It didn't seem like an especially strong result to me, though - while there is clearly a relationship between the chosen measure of confidence and promotion probability for men, it sure looks like it's there for women too, even if it doesn't pass the author's test of statistical significance.

It's also a reductionist view of what the advice in "lean in" is actually about. It's been a while since I read it, but my recollection is that it is about actually doing things like staying in the workforce even if you have kids, putting your name in for promotions, etc. I would be extremely surprised if choices like those are not correlated with likelihood of promotion.

Case in point, she is a woman. She's oversimplified her world so much that she thinks she's found THE answer

OK this is not an appropriate comment for HN

edit: or anywhere else

I have seen men over-generalize things just as much as women. Case in point: your comment.