All women's shoe emoji have high heels. This striking campaign wants to change that

There's an implicit gender bias lurking in your emoji keyboard which you might not have even noticed.

There are currently three women's shoe emoji, but all three of them have high heels. One Silicon Valley-based woman wants to change this. Independent arts publicist Floriane Hutchinson launched the #IWearFlats campaign to add a women's flat shoe emoji to our keyboards. Her proposal is currently up for discussion at the Unicode Consortium Emoji Subcommittee.

Flip to your emoji keyboard and scroll until you reach the clothing options. You'll notice five shoe emoji; a brown "man's shoe," a gender-neutral trainer or sneaker, and three high-heeled women's shoes. Hutchinson says this absence of a flat women's shoe emoji is problematic.

"The fact that women cannot opt in to have a female shoe without a heel is deeply problematic as the vast majority of women simply do not wear heels in their daily lives," says Hutchinson.

"The implicit expectation, albeit a virtual one, that women would and/or should wear high heeled shoes (be it a stiletto, a mule, or a boot) is simply absurd," she continues. Hutchinson notes that her campaign is far from a "stiletto boycott," but instead an effort to give "women who prefer flats" an icon they can identify.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The inspiration for this campaign came from Hutchinson's experience as a working mother with three young daughters. She says it attuned her to the myriad ways in which gender biases occur in early childhood—"particularly through visual language."

"Women are bombarded with visuals of objectified and aspirational female forms—whether it’s how to dress, body image expectations, or general demeanour—through media channels, publications, and peers," she says. She says the "digital language" we use on a daily basis—like emoji—are becoming just as important. When Hutchinson began thinking about the impact of "this new digital lexicon" on her own daughters, she began to realise just how unhappy she was with the options within the apparel category.

"The “women’s” shirt is a pink option with décolletage baked in. The hat (with its prominent bow), the dress (with its twirly girlyness) and the wallet (a frilly coin purse) all exude a very antiquated notion of how modern professional and fashionable women behave," says Hutchinson.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

She hopes this campaign will spark a conversation about the "entrenchment of gender stereotypes" in the emoji-line-up. And she hopes that the focus on the footwear line-up will encourage other women to challenge gender biases in emoji and elsewhere.

Emojipedia founder and editor Jeremy Burge says the "Women's Flat Shoe" was added to the emoji candidate list a few months ago, and it's currently planned for the 2018 emoji release. That doesn't guarantee it'll be added, but the chances are looking pretty decent right now.

Burge says that the current emoji clothing selection "mostly date back to the characters that existed in Japan." That said, he definitely sees why the current footwear emoji options aren't great. "I’m not sure if we need every type of shoe to be an emoji, but I can certainly see how women might feel that the current options of a high heeled shoe or tall boot aren’t ideal."

We'll likely find out at start of 2018 whether Hutchinson's campaign has been successful. If approved, the flat shoe emoji would likely end up on keyboards by late 2018.

Regardless of the outcome, Hutchinson's overarching message is "if you see something that bothers you, odds are you can do something about it." "There is no reason to accept the status quo," she says.