Children internalise parental messages regarding gender at an early age, with awareness of adult sex role differences being found in two-year-old children. One study found that children at two and a half years of age use gender stereotypes in negotiating their world and are likely to generalise gender stereotypes to a variety of activities, objects, and occupations (Witt 1997). This legitimisation puts forth the ideas that boys and men are not allowed to cry. There also exists the belief that boys are often required to do 'men's work' outside of the home such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage, etc., and not 'sissy women's work' such as cooking and cleaning, etc. Other factors help to perpetuate certain standards expected of men and boys (Stearns 1990). .
The violence boy's witness on television further legitimates this belief. Katz explains that advertising imagery equates masculinity with violence. For boys this means aggression is instrumental in that it enables them to establish their masculinity (Katz 1995). Lee Bowker researched the influence advertisements have on youth. He asserts that toy advertisements featuring only boys depict aggressive behaviour. Strangely, the aggressive behaviour generally results in positive consequences more often than negative. Bowker also looked at commercials with boys that contain references to domination. The results of all the commercials indicate that 68.6% of the commercials positioned toward boys contain incidents of verbal and physical aggression. There was no cross-gender display of aggressive behaviour. Interestingly, not one single-sex commercial featuring girls shows any act of aggression (Bowker 1998). This research helps explain that it is not just the reinforcement of close caretakers to the child that legitimate masculinity but society, and media as a whole (using the television as a symbol of society and its desires). .
To further the idea of how this can be reinforced, there are even women who may consciously or subconsciously try to promote such a belief.