I don't have much to say about what the internal experience of women is like, but this quote is true enough. It's worth saying, though, that academia is lot like the rest of life in this way -- there's a system of incentives, and an ecosystem to figure out how to maximize, and some people are really good at it.

Just like you might have a friend who had the same amount of money as you but who owns ten rental properties because he figured out this was a good way to use his skills to inhabit the system effectively, certain people really have figured out the points of leverage in academia. They know how to manage a big research group, crank out papers, get grants. Not everyone can do this. Some "normal" academics toil away, trying to do it the "right" way, and usually suffering.

Whatever the system, somebody will figure out an effective way to maximize it, and what they do will often not resemble what you thought the system was supposed to be doing (in this case, educating the public.)