Hierarchy needs a category to rank, and this is the one most used

The argument

A second argument moves from constraint to hierarchy. Proponents observe that unequal treatment requires a classification to operate on, because people cannot be treated differently as groups unless they are first sorted into groups. Gender, they argue, is among the most widely used sorting devices in human societies: it has been the basis on which property, inheritance, suffrage, legal standing, pay, credit and authority were distributed, and proponents argue that in each case the classification came first and the justification afterwards. The mechanism proponents emphasise is that reform leaves the sorting in place. Each inequality can be addressed on its own terms, and many have been, but proponents argue that as long as the category remains available it continues to supply the material for new distinctions as old ones are dismantled. On this account the pattern repeats because the classification is durable while any particular rule attached to it is not, so prohibiting discrimination treats the symptom and leaves the mechanism intact. Proponents argue that this is why their position is stronger than a call for equality between genders. Equality between categories requires maintaining the categories in order to compare them, which keeps the sorting active and keeps the comparison available to be reversed. Proponents accept that no one knows in detail what a world without the category would look like, and argue that the direction is nonetheless clear: a distinction that has carried this much inequality for this long is doing work that nothing of value requires, and the honest conclusion is to stop making it rather than to keep making it more fairly.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that the reasoning would abolish every category that has ever carried injustice, including nationality, language, religion and age, which is not a conclusion its proponents accept elsewhere. They add that classifications are also what makes inequality visible and remediable: without the category there is no way to measure a pay gap, identify who is being excluded or enforce a protection, so abolition would disarm the tools that produced the progress the argument relies on. The historical record, on this account, shows the category being used for both purposes rather than only for ranking.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The same reasoning would require abolishing nationality, religion, language and age, which have all carried injustice and which the argument does not propose to eliminate. [Rejecting P2] A classification used to distribute inequality is also what makes inequality measurable and actionable, so its history does not tell against it on balance. [Rejecting P3] New distinctions have not in fact reappeared at the old rate where protections were enforced, so the premise overstates the durability of the mechanism. [Rejecting C] The premises indict the uses to which gender has been put, which supports prohibiting those uses rather than eliminating the category.