May 12, 2016

Google Designs Emojis Depicting Professional Women

Female emojis                         
Image caption Google is suggesting 13 new emojis depicting women in a range of jobs 
               
Google engineers have designed a set of 13 emojis that they say better represent women in the world of work.The designs have been presented to the Unicode consortium, the body that approves and standardises emojis.
 
The team said that they hoped the samples would "empower young women (the heaviest emoji users) and better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world".
 
The term - which means picture (e) and character (moji) in Japanese - was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.
 
The team of four Google employees cited a New York Times op-ed called "Emoji Feminism" as the motivation for its new designs.
 
"Where, I wanted to know, was the fierce professional working her way to tenure? Where was the lawyer? The accountant? The surgeon?" asks Amy Butcher in the piece.

"We are told we are the new generation of American women; no longer a minority, we are, in fact, the majority of breadwinners in American homes. And yet the best we can get is the flamenco
 
Research by Procter & Gamble suggested that 82% of girls aged 16-24 use emojis every day. More than half of those surveyed thought that female emojis were stereotypical.
 
Google's designs include women in technology, construction, farming and the food industry. The female musician emoji includes a homage to the late David Bowie - with a pink zig-zag on her face.

Users can already select from different skin tones as well as the generic yellow on some devices.

Source: BBC

 

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