Grit can be defined as "Perseverance of Effort and Consistency of Interest" [0] so when I see an ad looking for "gritty people" I assume they're trying to find folks who tend to keep working on a problem consistently and won't want to move on until the work is completed.
Kind of a boring response, but I think you're reading too much into this. It's just a word.
Another counterargument to "redshirting" the boys: it's not fair to the boys who don't need it (or the girls who really do), to be held back an extra year.
Yet again, coding things by gender fails on the margins.
We think they're suffering because they're saying they're suffering.
Zero people would care about this if there wasn't a huge outcry from the gig workers themselves! This isn't just paternalism, it's the gig workers themselves driving these changes.
I think you're talking about "discussing politics to shoot the shit" but I think it's really important you realize that you and I do that because we're lucky, and "eschewing discussion of political topics" is only something you get the privilege to do when you're not getting targeted.
Kind of a boring response, but I think you're reading too much into this. It's just a word.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4981570/