Dozens of new emoji will finally show women being awesome
If you are tired of having to choose from the same predictable female emoji characters (yes, I mean you, princess), now is the time to rejoice.
On Thursday, Google announced that the emoji subcommittee of the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organization that develops and promotes software internationalization standards, had agreed to add 11 new characters that portray professional women in every skin tone.
You'll eventually be able to send text messages that feature a woman as a farmer, welder, mechanic, health worker, scientist, coder, business person, chef, student, teacher and David Bowie look-alike rockstar.
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But there's more cause to celebrate. Unicode is also adding male and female versions of 33 existing emoji.
You'll no longer let out a deep sigh of frustration when hovering over the male runner, cyclist, police officer, weight lifter, surfer and detective, because those are getting a female option as well.
The welcome development is the result of a proposal submitted by four Google employees to Unicode earlier this year, and came in the wake of a public debate over the lack of physically active and professional female emoji.
Their proposal suggested adding 13 new female emoji to "better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world." Google worked with the Unicode subcommittee members to execute the proposal, though the Unicode subcommittee opted not to pursue emojis for high-tech and healthcare workers because of overlap with existing emoji and design considerations.
According to Google, the proposed emoji could be "included in future platform versions, and Google is working to incorporate them into future versions of Android." However, there is no timeline for rollout.
Google celebrated the move in its Thursday announcement: "We hope these updates help make emoji just a little more representative of the millions of people around the 🌎 who use them."
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Rebecca Ruiz is a Senior Reporter at Mashable. She frequently covers mental health, digital culture, and technology. Her areas of expertise include suicide prevention, screen use and mental health, parenting, youth well-being, and meditation and mindfulness. Rebecca's experience prior to Mashable includes working as a staff writer, reporter, and editor at NBC News Digital and as a staff writer at Forbes. Rebecca has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a masters degree from U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.
