Well hell, if I lived in a cave I would probably want a big guy who could fight off bears...

I don't really want to fight them myself...

I could see that being a positive attribute for a cave-partner.

I would say biological programming is arbitrary in that it's highly illogical.

In a traditional sense, the man protects the woman, and not vice versa.

Logical error: what if he becomes sick, or gravely injured? How will she defend herself then?

Solution: if she has combat skills, she can pick up the slack, or team up to prevent either one from being injured to begin with. That requires more or less an egalitarian approach.

I haven't even brought up the possibility of her "protector" turning against her... seeing as that never happens in nature and all *sarcasm off*

The L: "Is it not safe to say that the concept of "biological programming" is hardly anything more than an arbitrary construct by which the *atriarchal society restricts freedom for the gender that has the least amount of collective power?"

No. I don't think it is safe to say that at all.

Generally, in talk about gender and sex, I see the following options for looking at the issues:

1) Gender is a "social construct" and biology has zero to do with gender. (Used primarily by gender feminists.)
2) Gender is "biologically determined" and socialization has little or nothing to do with it. (Used by those with a poor understanding of biological science and evolutionary theory.)
3) Organism and environment can never be seperated. Every issue of humanity, including gender, seems an example of the organism-as-a-whole in an environment-as-a-whole. In other words, gender is determined by a combination of socialization (environment) and biology (organism).

Personally, I'm going with number three.

Joe: "I do, however, believe that we are in a position to transcend such physical limitations through the human process of self-cognition. Whose place is it to say where such a path will lead?"

I agree. We have a possibility to transcend our biology...to a degree. Some things we cannot transcend, and unless some downward evolutionary pressure occurs, probably never will. These mostly lie in the purely biological realm, of course, where self-determination does not make much difference. Things like...

Men have larger, but less dense brains than women.
Men have larger lung capacities than women.
Men have lower body fat content than women.
etc...

Of course, these types of factors are part of the "organism-as-a-whole" mentioned above, and contribute to the social differences....

Anyhow...that's my two cents. The organism and the environment cannot be seperated. I think the philosophy of biological determinism and "gender is a social construct" both seem deeply and equally flawed, and restrictive to humans everywhere. Unfortunately, they both seem to be pretty popular ideas.