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Google wants better female representation in emoji
July 29, 2025
A quick perusal of theemoji databasereveals no shortage of doctors and lawyers and business executives, but if you look closely, you’ll notice that these are all male characters. Women emojicanbe found, but they’re generally princesses, brides, or icons designed to convey beauty. Where are all the working women at? They exist in real life, so why aren’t they showing up on our phones? We have space for over a dozen images of Japanese food but not one woman with a degree? This is the question Google is asking, so they’ve submitted aproposalto the Unicode Consortium recommending the addition of 13 new female emoji that would give women better representation.
In their proposal, Google cites the writing of Amy Butcher, who published a piece in theNew York Timesabout this very issue:
This is an important issue to take on. The inclusion of only males fulfilling these roles plays into long-standing stereotypes that reinforce the notion that occupations in the fields of tech, industry, and business are ‘man jobs.’ Indeed, the reason that we’re seeing such a troubling shortage of women in STEM fields today is because young women have long been subtly encouraged by myriad elements of our society to seek historically female roles that prize beauty and nurturing capabilities over intelligence or innovation. Having a female scientist emoticon is just one small step toward showing young women that a career as a scientist is in the cards for them.
The Unicode Consortium has come under fire for failing to meet modern standards of equal representation in the past, but when challenged, the organization scrambled to create same-sex emoji and an array of varied skin tones. We’d be surprised if they didn’t rise to this occasion as well, so we bet you can expect to see some more emojis representing women in the workforce and higher education in the future. In the meantime, what are your thoughts regarding thisEmoji Feminism? Let us know in the comments below!
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