Final answer:
The term for culturally determined gender-specific roles is 'gender role.' These roles are taught from birth and impact expected behaviors and professional choices. Gender roles can be flexible and may not always reflect personal preferences.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term for the culturally determined "masculine/feminine" role a person is taught to adopt by family and society is gender role. These roles emerge from society's values, beliefs, and attitudes and dictate how men and women are expected to behave and appear. For instance, in U.S. culture, masculine roles are often linked with strength, aggression, and dominance, whereas feminine roles are associated with passivity, nurturing, and subordination, according to societal norms.
Socialization, which begins at birth, is the process through which these gender roles are taught and reinforced. Children quickly learn these roles, with understanding of gender expectations starting as early as two or three years of age, and by four or five, most children firmly adopt culturally appropriate gender roles. Gender roles can influence various aspects of life, including occupational choices later in life, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as 'occupational sorting' where certain professions tend to be gender-dominated. However, gender roles can exhibit some flexibility, and they do not always align with an individual's personal preferences or gender identity. Gender stereotypes, which are oversimplified generalizations about the traits and behaviors of men and women, often underpin these roles and can lead to sexism.