Merit has little to do with social choices, though. Just look at how often "cultural fit" comes up in discussions of hiring.
You are imagining an idealized utopia. The problem is, we don't live there. Unless hiring is done purely through objective tests that have been tested for bias and normalized there will be social-status factors involved. Coping with those lets us get much closer to a merit-based world than pretending they don't exist.
Imagine you had some code but a system-level round function was broken: it rounded up on 4-9 and down on 0-3. You can't change the function without changing the entire operating system. Would the best approach be to say, "I don't think we should discriminate! Round functions should behave correctly!"? Or would it be to compensate for the known flaws while working to change the system-level issues?
I just believe that there should be NO discrimination whether positive or negative.
People should get a position based on their merit. If it ends up that a profession is all male or all female, so be it.
I would never spout a ridiculous angle such as 'child minders are predominantly female so lets make it easier for a male to get the job'.