Why are there gendered words for some professions like actor and actress but not e.g. doctor and doctress?

Question

Why are there gendered words for some professions like actor and actress but not e.g. doctor and doctress?

In: 1937

Answer 1

Technically a female doctor is a doctrix.

For any noun that ends in -tor as the masculine, the femenine should end in -trix. But that has really fallen out of style in the english speaking world.

Fun fact, the reason it’s acr*tress* and not ac*trix* is because when women being actors was made legal in medieval England the law specifically spelled it actress. Don’t know if it was just a hungover scribe or what, but that’s the reason. Prior to the 1500’s it was spelled actrix, then after it was legalized it was spelled actress.