Is there any sense in which it could be said that men are superior to women such that it would be true of all men as individuals?
Reply to Objection 1. As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence; such as that of a south wind, which is moist, as the Philosopher observes (De Gener. Animal. iv, 2). On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is not misbegotten, but is included in nature's intention as directed to the work of generation. Now the general intention of nature depends on God, Who is the universal Author of nature. Therefore, in producing nature, God formed not only the male but also the female.
I assume we are agreed that while men and women are of equal dignity and share the same nature (pace Desmond), in the order of creation man (as such) is a greater perfection than woman (as such), who was taken from him.
Since there's necessarily a sufficient reason why each individual man is born as a man and not a woman, there's necessarily a sense in which each and every individual man is of greater perfection than each and every individual woman. St. Thomas identifies a few possible reasons, we aren't obliged to agree with him.
The particular difference between men and women isn't in the reason or in physical strength, because both sexes have reason and strength - although men typically more - but in the generative functions. Authorities of the middle ages and of antiquity agreed that men have the formative and activating function in procreation, women the receptive and maturing. (Note that this idea never meant that women don't contribute genetically to the child.) Every man, then, even the weakest and stupidest, has by virtue of being a man that potency to give life.
This is not intended to demean, and personally I don't believe it demeans the woman's function in procreation, which is worthy of immense respect. Her procreative function, however, really is a secondary one, a "help" to the man:
I answer that, It was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a "helper" to man; not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation.
Even so it will be possible to find men who are mutilated or congenitally deformed or otherwise hampered in a way that obscures this innate superiority. This is why I call it a potency. It is something necessarily present, but in some cases goes unrealized.