>In physical contests, like athletics, it makes sense to have different awards. But "acting" is a level field for both men and women!
@dattapan:

Maybe you have some statistics to back that up? From SAG, we continually see that women over 40 are severely underrepresented in relation to census data. The opposite for Caucasian (over 3/4th of roles). [1]

"...only 27 percent of speaking roles in top-grossing U.S. films are female..."
http://imow.org/wpp/stories/viewStory?storyId=1602

"...400 of the top-grossing G, PG, PG-13, and R-rated theatrically-released films in North America between January 1, 1990 and September 4th, 2006....73% of the characters are male. This translates into a ratio of 2.71 males to every 1 female."[2]

I can't imagine when the Oscars started in 1927, how few female leads existed. Popular roles: housewife, whore, madam, adulterer, bank robber.

21 Oscars have gone to women playing hookers, madams, mistresses, promiscuous ladies. Rough math: 1927-2007 = 70 years * 2 awards (lead + support). So, 21/140 = 15% of award-winning roles were tramps of some sort. [3]

Women behind-the-scenes, as producers, directors, etc. are underrepresented statistically. But, as was mentioned before, those roles are not cast by gender. [4]

Beyond statistics, is the concept of the male actor and female actor award. You may have a great female lead with a terrible male lead, and still be nominated for an Oscar. The distinction between male/female and lead/supporting give four opportunities to recognize an individual's contribution to film.

Removing the distinction would not help. It would cloud the award process.

On the other hand, creating a "Best Female Cinematographer" award would be, obviously, a crude attempt at pushing gender equality. Consider that 2% were women when counting the top 250 films in 2007.[5]
Source(s):
1http://www.sag.org/files/documents/CastingDataReport.pdf
2http://www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org/downloads/GDIGM_Main_Findings.pdf
3http://www.filmsite.org/bestactress.html
4http://magazine.women-in-film.com/Portals/0/Article_Images/lauzen/2007ceili...
5http://magazine.women-in-film.com/Portals/0/Article_Images/lauzen/2007ceili...


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