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I agree with those of you who have said that it is really valuable to consider the influence of social constructs on gender differences in behavior. In a similar vein other situational variables must significantly influence behavior, such as the constraints of the environment that determine the most adaptive behaviors for males and females.

For example, evolutionary psychologist (I'm sorry I don't have a citation but Ben Le teaches it in his Intro Social Psych course at Haverford) have argued that females having a lower number of sexual partners could possibly be more adventageous for their survival since sexual acts could potentially result in a 9-month investment and incapacitation, while the physical investment of males ends right after the act has been finished. Thus males and females have evolved to behave differently sexually. Women are naturally less promiscuous because adaptively they should only want to mate with males who will provide for them in their period of vulnerability (pregnancy), while males will be more so because it helps them spread their seeds. (Of course such a position has been challenged by feminists as merely providing justification for double standards in expectations of sexual conduct for males and females.)

Caitlin Jeschke brought brought up the point of plasticity of the nervous system as it responds to different inputs and new structures. While evolution leads to changes on the level of populations rather than individuals, perhaps environments can cause certain behaviors to be more likely in subsequent generations by favoring certain kinds of nervous systems in survival capacities.