There is no denying the shortage of emojis showing women doing professional things, as users have long griped about stereotypically “feminine” emojis depicting princesses and painting nails. On Thursday, Google announced Unicode Consortium’s emoji subcommittee — a nonprofit organization that develops emoji — has agreed to introduce 11 new female emojis of varying professions in every available skin tone.
“More than 90 percent of the world's online population use emoji,” wrote Google on its blog. “But while there's a huge range of emoji, there aren't a lot that highlight the diversity of women's careers, or empower young girls.”
In addition to 11 new careers, Unicode will be adding female and male version to 33 existing emojis. This means users can choose between a male and female runner, or either a woman or a man getting a haircut.
Earlier this year, Google submitted a proposal to the Unicode Technical Committee calling for new emojis with more diverse professions for women and men. Since then, Google has worked with Unicode to make this proposal a reality.
When are the new emojis coming out? There is no confirmed date when they will be rolled out, but Google has stated that the new emojis could be "included in future platform versions, and Google is working to incorporate them into future versions of Android."
“These new emoji are one of several efforts we’re making to better represent women in technology, and to connect girls with the education and resources they need to pursue careers in STEM,” said Google on its blog.
