Importance given to women rowing crew (6)
I believe the answer is:
weight
'importance' is the definition.
(weight is a kind of importance)
'given to women rowing crew' is the wordplay.
'given to' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'women' becomes 'w'.
'rowing crew' becomes 'eight' (I've seen this before).
'w' next to 'eight' is 'WEIGHT'.
(Other definitions for weight that I've seen before include "Feeling of oppression; heaviness" , "Avoir-du-pois" , "The property of heaviness, measure of mass" , "gives a sense of oppression" , "Vertical force as a result of gravity" .)