ASA sections have official recognition as legitimate areas of sociological inquiry, which helps individuals pitch new courses to teach, request new faculty positions, and legitimate their own research agenda within the area.
There is a proposal before the ASA Council to increase the number of sessions controlled by the sections. Such a shift, which appears to have the support of ASA staff, would make it increasingly unlikely that we would be able to continue getting 4-5 regular ASA sessions (as we did in 2017), but also more likely that small sections, such as a section on the Sociology of Reproduction, would be able to get more than the 2 ASA sessions currently promised.