So here is the thing. All of us are born to be biological males and females but that does not explain how we acquire the behaviours the resembles what we have right now as a male or as a female. In sociology, we are not looking at the biological Sex. We are interested in looking at the sociological version of sex known as Gender. Gender is the concept that is linked to something called social status and social role. These may be important determinant of how much access we have to resources that may be needed for us to succeed in the world or within the context of healthcare, access to better health. Again, within the context of sociology, we are not born but taught to behave in a way that our society expects us to behave as a male or as a female. We were socially programmed to behave in socially accepted gender behaviour. That in sociological term is known as Gender Socialisation.

In the diagram above, the authors took a fairly detailed look at how Social Structure (top-level), Agents of Socialisation (Level 2) and Individuals (Bottom Level) has a great impact in determining equality and  delivering equity (Balvin, Albright, & Misra, 2017).  Remember the statistics of breast cancer from the previous section?  Breast cancer can be treated and if the medical intervention is early enough, no one should have died from this disease. Yet, many do in Singapore. The reason behind the high mortality rate (death from the cancer) is due in part to patient delay. So what caused patients, particularly female patients (yes, males do get breast cancers too albeit in much smaller numbers) to delay treatment? Lim, et al. (2015) investigated this and found that one of the main causes of delay among women due to their socioeconomic status, Think of why being born a female would make her have less chance to be financially independence in the poorest segment of our or other society?