Tell me, when assigning hotel rooms at a conference, and some people have requested to share a room to economise, and requested to be paired with people of the same sex, would you ignore people's gender and pick room-sharers randomly out of a hat? Trivial example, yes, but a simple way to demonstrate that sometimes deciding on basis of gender is not actually wrong.

When I hire, I think about what each applicant will bring to the team. There are noticeable differences between a team in which every member exhibits stereotypical male behaviour and characteristics, and a team in which some members exhibit stereotypical male behaviour and characteristics whilst some other members exhibit stereotypical female behaviour and characteristics. Sometimes, the second kind of team is better suited for a task than the first, and as a bonus, often the stereotypical males behave better and don't act like children.

The only reliable way I've found to bring stereotypical female behaviour and characteristics to the team is to hire someone who actually has those characteristics, and nine times out of ten that person is female. If I ignored that, it'd be like taking a stance where I ignored things such as someone's employment history, or their education history.