Editing Esperanto (section)

===Gender-neutrality===
{{See also|Gender reform in Esperanto}}
Esperanto is sometimes accused of being inherently [[sexism|sexist]], because the default form of some nouns is used for descriptions of men while a derived form is used for the women. This is said to retain traces of the male-dominated society of late 19th-century Europe of which Esperanto is a product.<ref name="Bertilo">[http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/seksa_signifo.html Bertilo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019160056/http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/seksa_signifo.html |date=October 19, 2013 }} (in Esperanto)</ref><ref name="critiche">{{cite web|title=Critiche all'esperanto ed alle altre lingue internazionali|url=http://parracomumangi.altervista.org/domande.htm|url-status=live|access-date=December 5, 2010|website=Parra Comu Mangi|publisher=|language=it|archive-date=July 16, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716064219/http://parracomumangi.altervista.org/Domande.htm}}</ref> These nouns are primarily titles, such as ''baron/baroness'', and kinship terms, such as ''sinjoro'' "Mr, sir" vs. ''sinjorino'' "Ms, lady" and ''patro'' "father" vs. ''patrino'' "mother". Before the movement toward equal rights for women, this also applied to professional roles assumed to be predominantly male, such as ''doktoro,'' a holder of a doctorate (male or unspecified), versus ''doktorino,'' a female doctorate-holder. This paralleled the contemporary situation with the English suffix ''-ess,'' as in the words ''waiter/waitress'', ''actor/actress'', etc.

On the other hand, the pronoun ''ĝi'' ("it") may be used generically to mean he/she/they; the pronoun ''li'' ("he") is always masculine and ''ŝi'' ("she") is always female, despite some authors' arguments.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kalocsay |first1= Kálmán|last2= Waringhien|first2= Gaston|title = Plena analiza gramatiko de Esperanto|date=1985|page=73|publisher = Universala Esperanto-Asocio|isbn = 9789290170327}}</ref> A gender-neutral singular pronoun ''ri'' has gradually become more widely used in recent years, although it is minority usage.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lingvakritiko.com/2020/05/12/la-efektiva-uzado-de-seksneutralaj-pronomoj-lau-empiria-esplorstudo/|title=La efektiva uzado de seksneŭtralaj pronomoj laŭ empiria esplorstudo|last=Kramer|first=Markos|date=12 May 2020|website=Lingva Kritiko|access-date=30 November 2020|trans-title=The actual use of gender-neutral pronouns according to an empirical research study|language=eo|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201130170049/https://lingvakritiko.com/2020/05/12/la-efektiva-uzado-de-seksneutralaj-pronomoj-lau-empiria-esplorstudo/|archive-date=30 November 2020}}</ref> The plural pronoun ''ili'' ("they") is always neutral, while nouns with the prefix ''ge–'' specifically includes both sexes, for example ''gesinjoroj'' (equivalent, depending on context, to either ''sinjoro kaj sinjorino'' "Mr. and Ms." or ''sinjoroj kaj sinjorinoj'' "Ladies and Gentlemen"), ''gepatroj'' "parents" (equivalent to ''patro kaj patrino'' "mother and father").