Perhaps this has been observed and written by others before, but I've only thinking along these lines fairly recently, so will share, regardless:

Thread on non-western stories and western editors:

A significant % of stories are rejected not because they're bad or 'not for us' (us being the magazine in question), but because the cultural, psychosocial, and aesthetic measures against which said story is found wanting were created for the white (and now western) FANBOY gaze.

The emotional resonance 'good' stories are meant to generate (that really, truly sells them) are subject to the individual editor's taste -- a construct that developed over decades of reading particular kinds of literature.

If a story doesn't hit the right amygdalic synapse in the editor's head and evoke nostalgia and emotional regression, it won't 'work for them'. This is why so many non-western stories simply don't affect western editors the same way.

This is also one reason, I suspect, why after several submissions an editor suddenly begins liking that writer's 'voice'. Through repetition the writer has, regardless of the editor's old preferences, 'taught' them how to read the writer's particular kind of stories.

This is why it behooves writers to keep trying new ways of writing and reading. The critics and editors can catch up later once they understand what you're doing.