I've convinced my bird that the best way to avoid any arguments about male vs female athletic performance is to think about them as two completely different sports operating under similar rules.
Like weight classes in the boxing it is clear that a women's team could never compete in a world where gender divides didn't exist. In fact, if gender divides were removed from football, tennis, etc., you'd see a complete disappearance of women from the upper levels of these sports.
It will always be the case that male junior athletes can beat female world record times (in sprinting, for example), so it's best to consider them two completely different sports as the male physiological advantage is so great that it completely changes the way in which the game is played. On that note, female accomplishments shouldn't be held to equal that of the men's game (just as no-one thinks Lomochenko could beat Deontay Wilder) but should be celebrated in their own right.