It is.
Though honestly, I don't even know why 18 being weaker than 17 needed to be a thing.
One Strip! One Strip!It strikes me that the difference is small enough to be negligible in an actual fight.
This song needs more love.Godtier Piccolo didn't amount to much but it brought Dende back so that's neat
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThat's because Kami made them after the fusion.
So when they re-fused, the creator no longer existed and they went dormant became inert.
So I'd imagine that the gap would be fairly significant.
16 said fused Piccolo had enough power to rival 17 and 18, so I doubt the gap was very big at all.
You know why.
No, actually, I doubt it's because of sexism. If it was, why would Toriyama explain it within the manga? He'd just have it there as a given.
I can easily see why 18 was made weaker - he wanted to use her first to fight Vegeta, and after that Piccolo needs to be hyped up so 17 is even stronger to better establish the gap between Piccolo and the Super Saiyans. It also fits with the foreshadowing of 16's strength, and the order of Gero making the uncontrolled Androids weaker until he succeeded with 19 and 20.
He's definitely unaware of the implications with making 18 weaker, but it's very easy to see the story reasons why 17 is stronger.

I do actually agree that Dragon Ball's plotting problems only really start showing up in later arcs. Otherwise, it's serviceable for the most part.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.