New emojis to bring gender equality to the fore

Emojis have taken over the world it seems, and Google have been at the forefront of the latest additions to the dictionary which showcase equality between men and women.

The Unicode Consortium is made up by several technology companies, and is in charge of the little faces and characters we see on our smartphone screens.

On Thursday the consortium announced plans for 11 new “professional” emojis. It also called for both female and male versions of a number of existing emojis that represent only one gender.

Google proposed the idea to provide both men and women undertaking various professional careers, as well as changing 33 existin emojis which were only represented by one gender.

Emojis like that of the runner, cyclist, police officer, weight lifter, surfer and detective, which are limited to male gender, will also now get female versions, giving women a choice that is not limited to a princess or a dancer.

The news was announced ahead of World Emoji Day on Sunday, and Unicode had previously been criticised for not being inclusive enough when it came to representation of race and gender.

Although an attempt to counter these allegations was made by launching different skin and hair colors in the past updates, gender was until this point an issue that was not addressed.

“We hope these updates help make emoji just a little more representative of the millions of people around the (world) who use them,” Google said in the announcement.