Conveniently, though, our objections are dismissed on the grounds that we don't understand "how evolution has programmed our brains," or that we are not brave enough to confront the truth.

In this case, you have my sympathies when your perspective is dismissed on the grounds of evolutionary theory. While I am a big fan of evolutionary theories, I see it as a tool for generating hypotheses, and I think it only provides weak evidence for any beliefs on its own.

In the case of "programming," I don't really agree with your objections to the term. The metaphor of "programming" for biology has holes (e.g. lack of a programming agent), but it's useful enough in other ways to be employing by scientists. Take, for instance, the terms genetic code and developmental program.

My guess is that you would be bothered by the following passage:

There may be more primitive forms of attraction, such as the dominance-sexual attraction link [...] that have their origins in our remote evolutionary past. These mechanisms may have been in place long before humans evolved more sophisticated mechanisms that allowed them to adapt to the increased complexity of social life. Like an out-of-date-but-not-deleted computer routine that lies dormant during normal operation, and that no longer shows up on the new tree diagram, the darker forms of attraction may be less open to conscious inspection. Like the old computer routine, the old mechanisms still can be activated with suitable input. My guess is that a person who experiences the activation of such a mechanism may be as surprised as the computer operator looking at the output that the old routine generates.

Who wrote this passage? The pickup artist Mystery, perhaps? Actually, it was researchers in a book chapter on evolutionary social psychology:

Graziano, W.G., Jensen-Campbell, L.A., Todd, M. & Finch, J. (1997).  Interpersonal attraction from an evolutionary psychology perspective:  Women’s reactions to dominant and prosocial men.  In J.A. Simpson & D. Kenrick (Eds.), Evolutionary Social psychology.  (pp. 141-167). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 

As for the notion that women being "programmed" being offensive, I can't completely relate to that, because ever since puberty, I've taught that men are visually programmed to respond to women's bodies. Given that we are all used to the notion that men have automatic and mechanistic sexual responses to women, the notion that women have automatic and mechanistic sexual responses to men hardly seems groundbreaking. Of course, you might well reject such metaphors towards either gender.

You get why that's obnoxious, right?

As far as I can tell, the problem is that some men have anecdotal observations of women's preferences that differ from your understanding of your own preferences, and of other women's. I understand your frustration with overbroad generalizations about women's preferences, and the use of evolutionary theories in the absence of empirical studies. That being said, I do hope that weaker versions of those claims won't be dismissed. And I must caution against putting much weight on the preferences of yourself and your female friends when considering what weaker theses might be true of women on average (see the typical mind fallacy).