Women are taking on new roles in real life (congrats, Theresa May), on toy shelves (welcome to office, presidential Barbie), and now, in emoji. Word spread in May about a Google proposal for more career-oriented female emoji, and today, the Unicode Consortium, which reviews all emoji applications, issued its approval. The announcement comes just in time for World Emoji Day this weekend.
There are 11 new professions joining the 33 existing male and female emoji, including: health workers, doctors, farmers, coders, businesswomen, rockstars, scientists, students, teachers, welders, and mechanics. The emoji will come in all skin tones and are a much-needed addition to the previously limited representations of women, which included a dancer, a bride, and a queen.
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And there's more. The Unicode Consortium is also adding male and female alternates to all current emoji. This means you'll have a female cyclist, a police woman, and a man getting a haircut.
These come as a surprise announcement, since the Consortium already issued its final approval on 72 new emoji last month. An avocado and a rockstar all in one year? This is just too much.
According to Google, these additional symbols will roll out on Android devices first. There's no word yet on how soon they might come to iOS, but given the high volume of requests for more female icons, they're likely to become available sooner rather than later.
While you wait to send your doctor emoji, try out one of the other emoji keyboards to spice up your text life.