Meh, I'm not so sure about this. It's well established in medicine that men are about 50% stronger than women physically, especially in their upper limbs where the disparity can be up to 100%.

I'm not sure if you're hinting that perhaps Ren is a weaker man because he's geeky and that Rey is fit and strong, so they're basically equal. Physically I mean, not if you consider the Force. Because I find that unlikely. Look, I don't know you but I've had lots of interactions with women since I was a young male. They're no comparison in strength. For instance, as a student two girls would try to throw me into the swimming pool. It's easy to handle them both - we're much much stronger than them. My female friends often say that if their husbands want to overwhelm them playfully there is nothing they can do. Maybe there are some really powerful women out there but Rey is obviously smallish and almost petite. She hardly comes across as some Eastern European Olympic female weight lifter.

Well indeed, and it's also only limited to mammals. Female insects are often much bigger and stronger, for instance. From an evolutionary aspect, men probably adapted to fight one another for genetic dominance and the right to procreate, thus the strength. It's even possible that original males were as strong as women but as partner selection became more fierce, males started to become stronger. Weaker blood lines died off.

There are lots of flaws in this too. Males and females have similar untapped strength potentials. Unless you're a construction worker or gym bunny, it's unlikely that you've reached your 'genetic peak'. It's likely that most males and females are much weaker than they could be if they started becoming active. Even if you look at the very best Olympians - the difference in speed and strength between males and females is striking. The best women often don't come close to the strongest men, especially in certain sports disciplines (go look at weight lifting records).

Genes can definitely shift and change, but as they are now, male genes promote extreme levels of testosterone compared to women. The innate cellular strength that testosterone gives to men cannot be matched by almost all women. I have read about smallish guys who have been physically overwhelmed by "amazon" like women who raped them, but this is hardly the norm in any way. If you start giving a woman testosterone injections she will androgenize and probably be as strong as most men, but it's a silly debate, because there is no reason to suspect that Rey/Ren are any different from your average male and female human, even though it's science fiction.

Okay but at the end it was really direct strength for strength. There are very few men who would ever be stuck in a lock like that with a young woman. I can tell you now that most guys will overwhelm her in seconds. It's the fact that she's a 'jedi' that makes this a non-issue for me. I have no doubt that a female and male Jedi are the same in every way.

But the rules of the Jungle are entirely appropriate in a physical fight to the death. When Ren and Rey fight then that's all that counts in exactly the same was as when two lions or two rabbits fight to the death.

When the Force comes into it, nothing else matters. Yoda could probably kill whole armies of men.

Hate to break this to you but we are animals. We are mammals. In many ways we have not outgrown any of our primitive ideals. Why do you think our 'gods' are sports stars and movie stars? Fitness, strength, beauty... those are what mammals respect. I don't agree with this aspect of humanity but it's true - people still dominate weaker people (physical, mental, monetary etc) in every sphere of life. We're a competitive, relentless species with much less compassion than we pretend to have.