Patricia Arquette and the wage gap

One has to wonder how the winner of "Best Supporting Actress" can complain about discrimination between men and women. Would she have an Oscar if the Academy didn't create a separate category just for women? (Personally I don't think her performance was better than the performances by either Emma Stone or Laura Dern, but I think almost everyone would agree it wasn't better than the performance by J.K. Simmons!)

Certainly there is some justification for separating a contest by sex when it requires physical strength; generally men are stronger than women and if the strongest women competed against the strongest men the men would always win. That is just genetics of the species. So separate golf, basketball, wrestling, track and field competitions all make sense.

But acting?

I can't see a single justification for separate acting Oscars. Why not have "Best Male Director" and "Best Female Director" categories? And split the producers, cinematographers, composers, writers, etc.!

Is it time to just nominate the top lead and supporting performances and get rid of the sex-specific awards? Doing so would support the argument that they are all doing the same job and should all get the same pay.