Whether we are choosing the perfect one to accompany our Instagram post dedicated to a friend's birthday or sending one in a text to a friend, emojis have become an incredibly popular and fun form of expression over the past few years. Despite their massive popularity, one glaring problem still remains: where are are all of the professional women emojis?
When looking through the emoji keyboard, it is easy to see the difference in professions between the men and women characters. The characters available for women include a salsa dancer in a red dress, a princess, a pair of twins, an "information desk person" and a bride. In contrast, there are depictions of a male character as a police officer, a detective, an angel, a man wearing a turban, a guardsman, a man wearing a gua pi moa (a type of hat) , and a construction worker. In the sports section, there are depictions of male athletes swimming, skiing, snowboarding, biking, playing golf, and canoeing. There are two gender neutral characters surfing and playing basketball.
Now, I am not saying that the lack of female representation in emojis is the most pressing issue to women. There are far more serious and pertinent problems facing them such as violence, pay inequality, access to reproductive services, and sexual assault. However, this misrepresentation can be seen in the broader spectrum of women not being taken seriously in a professional environment.
In an interview with Mic, former engineering manager at Google and current CEO of evertoon, Niniane Wang, discussed why proper depictions of professional female emojis is so important. She states, "Every day we're seeing this subtle message that there are these emojis of men doing jobs, but women are just dancing and getting their hair cut. It has an effect."
There have been steps made in increasing the representation of multiple cultures through emojis. In 2015, the emoji creators, Unicode, introduced a set of diverse characters. Traditional emojis could now be selected from six different skin tones. With this shift to include more cultures, the next step in increasing inclusion could be to create emojis of professional women.
Some may criticize that this issue may be trivial and not warrant an argument; however, I beg to differ. Having women depicted as professionals and not just as "girly" subjects would be a step towards equality and genuine representation. Girls are so much more than just princesses, brides, and dancers. It's time that we all recognize this.
