- Because the criteria of "merit" usually "just happen" to be a description of the people who get to define them and evaluate others.
- Because measuring only at the finishing line while ignoring how far people have had to come is in fact unequal, not equal treatment.
- Because the concept victim-blames those who aren’t allowed/enabled/supported to succeed according to it.
- Because it's a really astounding statistical anomaly that all those "meritocratic" communities "who don't care about gender etc." are in practice ridiculously less diverse than the population in general.
Equality is a bullshit term. It does not exist in reality. It's an illusion, a joke.
See what I did there? You've got to explain why you think it's a bullshit term--because as an ideal, it's a damned sight more useful than whatever else people are pushing.