Gender is a category system made up of many levels, many interwoven strands.
Physiology defines the most fundamental level, designating people as male or female on the basis of their observable sexual anatomy, but every known society surrounds the basic facts of sexual form and function with a system of social rules and customs concerning what males and females are supposed to be and do.
As children master and internalize this system, they learn to discriminate and label themselves and others on the basis of sex, to recognize attributes, and behaviors that are typical of or considered appropriate for each sex, and to learn how to do what is seen as appropriate and to avoid what is not.
What's more, the gender category system is infused with affect to an extent few other knowledge bases can match, making it what is perhaps the most salient parameter of social categorization for the young child.
Our focus here is upon gender development from infants' earliest recognition of sex-related differences through the acquisition of gender knowledge and sec behavior during early and middle childhood.
The environmental influences with which we are most concerned are family, son, and daughter define what is expected of the individual who occupies the role in relation to the others who enact their own roles; gender development consists of learn-by-doing mastery of the prescribed roles.
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