Is he really going to try and pull the "Women are weaker then men" card after Olivia has been slaughtering their troops ever since she enlisted?
He’s not wrong. Women have about 50-60% of the upper body strength as men, which is going to matter in melee. Olivia is magic, and magic is fairly rare in this setting. The other strong female fighters have also been “high in Odic Force” if not straight-up sorcerers.
I appreciate when stories give a nod to basic biology. It makes the world building more coherent and lets magic be something special.