Permalinks, categories, non responsive

Can anyone assist?

I have a non responsive directory theme.

Im having major issues with my permalinks and categories linking.

I dont want a category box on the front page. I have created drop down menus with a parent category and each parent category has a child one. eg Male> clothing, Male, shoes etc

The drop down menus work fine, but I cant get the permalink custom structure correct so that when clicking on the sub menu, it takes you to the sub category. Instead, I get whatever template the page is set up on.

Im pretty sure this is a permalink issue, but I just cant seem to get it right.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for your time.