Gender

Toki Pona doesn't have any grammatical gender like in most Western languages. However, some words in Toki Pona (such as mama) don't tell you which gender a person is, and so we use mije and meli to distinguish.

mama		a parent in general (mother or father)
mama meli		mother
mama mije		father

Keep in mind, though, that in Toki Pona it's usually best not to specify whether the person you're talking about is male or female unless there's a special reason for doing so.