I've been saying this for the past decade, so I agree. Nothing new about that concept. No need to get worked up, but hey - every little issue counts as well if we're going to break the glass ceiling, right?

i can't believe how ridiculous that is. i think those feminists should get over their damn selves.

I think that since we now know that there are more than two genders, I think that categories like "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" are irrelevent

But here's the problem--if they did that, women would probably NEVER win, and possibly not even get nominated. Not because there aren't amazing female actors out there, but because no matter how many strides Hollywood is supposedly making to "equality," roles for women are for the most part still not as good as roles for men. That blond football mom from The Blind Side vs. crazed Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood? It's not even a contest.

So it's a good idea in theory, but unless somebody starts writing better roles for the ladies, I think a "gender neutral" Oscars would still seriously stack the odds in favor of the dudes.

True, Eliza. But women have never in the history of the Oscars won a directing award either and they almost never get nominated. So why not split that category into gender as well?

I'll tell you why. Because the general viewing audience of The Oscars doesn't give a shit about directors. They only care about actors because those are the people they see and recognize. So it has to be ensured that female actors get awards so that the audience and media gets their fill.

And yeah, you wouldn't have separate categories for race, so why gender? Time and time again, we are always getting shown that it's not OK to be racist, but it's perfectly OK to be sexist. We all buy into that, which is probably why women still have a loooooooong way to go towards achieving the equality we want. Like I said in a prior post, every issue counts, big or small.

Plus I heard on the news there are 3 men's roles for every one women's role. So women would be less likely to be nominated on that count as well.

There are so much more important issues out there, I think this one makes us feminists look like children.

There are bigger issues that feminists should be focused on. This is a good example of why at times feminists aren't taken seriously. Why is this more important than gay rights, rebuilding the job market, the high cost of college tuitions, etc. and those are only the topics I could of think of in a few seconds. This concerns me that some feminists get so easily distracted by little things like this and take their focus off real major problems

Of course there are more important issues out there, but to say that focusing on issues that are smaller makes people seem like children is just wack and part of the overall problem. Everything counts in one way or another. Besides, I don't think an editorial in the NYT means that they're making a statement that it's a more important issue than anything else. It's just an article in a newspaper filled with articles about all sorts of issues - like Kristoff's recent columns on the women in the Congo - which, btw, I never see postings on that in Bust.

I think what people said about less women getting nominated/no women winning would be correct. The academy is still very much a guys club, even though they have some lady members. They are, traditionally, a group of crotchety, backwards thinking men who aren't always on the up and up with the times.

It's no secret that Brokeback Mountain lost best picture because of homophobia in the academy. Several prominent members said specifically that they would never vote for a gay themed movie to win, no matter how good of a film it was (or how terrible of a film it's competition was).