"Our proposal it to create a new set of emoji that represents a wide range of professions for women and men with a goal of highlighting the diversity of women's careers and empowering girls everywhere," says Google.
Googlers have come up with 13 new ones, depicting businesswomen, officer workers, doctors, graduates, engineers, factory workers, mechanics, farmers, chefs, teachers — and rock stars, it seems Google wants to reflect the reality, virtually.
According to a 2015 SocialTimes report by AdWeek, almost everyone online use emoji — a whopping 92 percent and women are the more prolific users, making up 78 percent of that compared with 60 percent of men.
And young women — aged between 25 and 29 are the heaviest users and most likely to use emoji at work while communicating with their colleagues.
"For millions of people around the world, emoji are an important means of communication," say the Googlers, "and a strong representation of culture," adding:
"…The roles of people in the workplace cannot be communicated with emoji. This is especially true for women."
Google's proposal end with the suggestion that "other members of Unicode to join us in creating a system of emoji design that can accommodate a broader gender spectrum".
Happy #TeacherAppreciationDay! Thank a teacher that inspires you to believe in yourself and achieve more #LikeAGirl pic.twitter.com/b7yo7nMzWp
— Always (@Always) May 3, 2016
Representing women with more accurate emoji online, and what role they play in society is obviously a good thing — still missing is something to remind the world of the pay gap between men and women.
Maybe a big old yawn will do until it changes.
