For most children, the kind of person they will eventually become is decided upon once their sex is discovered. After this point, society takes hold of the wheel and steers either towards the path of masculinity for males or femininity for females. The construction of gender by society is so ingrained in how we live that we seldom take a moment to realize all of the cues. The 2004 film "Mean Girls" paints a perfect picture of how it is not one's sex, but the culture with which one is surrounded which will dictate their behavior. .

             According to Judith Lorber, author of the article "The Social Construction of Gender"", gender construction starts with the assignment of a sex category. Beginning at birth, babies are named, dressed and exposed to specific situations which support and build their gender" based upon their sex. Sandra Lee Bartky, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, goes on to explain that individuals are born male or female, however, not masculine or feminine; traits which she describes as "artifice(s)," achieved through actions and self-representation. Lorber explains that sex shifts from just a biological category to a gender classification. As children grow, they are more deeply rooted into the gender which society has built for them via the social learning theory, which states that people learn within a social context (Ormrod). Clothing, entertainment and general social norms all create an image of what a male or female "should look like and how they "should " act in accordance to their sex. Males and females are treated differently in reference to their sex, which constructs a respective gender. In society, sex and gender have evolved to a point where they are nearly synonymous. .

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             Gender norms and expectations are administered by peers via informal sanctions by rewarding gender-appropriate behavior and chastising any conduct that veers outside of the social "rules " of a particular gender (Lorber, 143).