Google Programmers Propose New Set of Working Women Emoji

Take a look at your phone's emoji list. Notice how the only people representing jobs (such as police officers and construction workers) are men, while women are limited to brides and princesses? Some Google developers aren't happy with that one-sided state of affairs. They've proposed a new set of Unicode emoji that better represent women in professional roles. Their 13 new emoji would show both men and women in very well-known industries, ranging from tech (our favorite) to farming to rock stars. They hope that this gives young women a subtle confidence boost -- if it's no big deal to use the emoji for a female software engineer, there won't be as much of a stigma around becoming a software engineer.

The proposal is still very young, and there are chances that it'll either go through significant changes or even get the axe. With that said, we wouldn't be surprised if the Unicode Consortium gives this emoji expansion the green light. As proposed, the new icons would both tackle gender imbalance and expand the range of work-related emoji in one fell swoop.

See M. Obama's reaction:

Hey @Always! We would love to see a girl studying emoji. Education empowers girls around the world. #LetGirlsLearn #LikeAGirl

— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) March 8, 2016