well -- strength is sort of important, and weight is even more important, and men are just bigger. even at the competitive level, they do play a different sort of game. not to say that women can't compete with men -- they can -- but there it is. (maybe not an advantage, since it's not a faster-stronger-higher sort of game, but the different kinds of bodies lend themselves to different skills and thus playing the game differently. i've known men to be as much at sea in a mostly women's game as women were in a mostly men's game.)

originally, of course, women didn't play at all. so we're still probably at a point where it's good that there's a men's event and a women's event because otherwise there'd be precious few women competing at the high levels at all. (what it should be, of course, is neither separate nor mixed, but Open, where a team has four players and nobody gives a damn if they're men or women. but we're not there yet. [g] quick, name the only olympic event where men and women compete together!)