• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
TechraceAhead

Google and Emoji Authorities Put Gender Equality on the Fast Track

By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
July 15, 2016, 9:54 AM ET

When a quartet of Google employees recently pushed for emojis to become less male-centric, the organization in charge of authorizing the handy characters took notice.

The Unicode Consortium said on Thursday that it would shake things up with urgency. Until now, many emoji have been depicted as men—police officers, for example—while the female characters have been highly stereotyped in other roles, such as hairdressers.

By the end of this year, there will be 11 professions with new emoji for both men and women across a variety of skin tones. These include farmers, welders, mechanics, health workers, scientists, coders, business workers, chefs, students, teachers, and rock stars.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

On top of those emoji, which Google (GOOG) proposed a few months ago, new versions will become available for 33 existing emoji that currently portray only a man or a woman, such as runners and cops.

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization comprised of members from the various companies that may end up incorporating emoji into their products, such as Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM), and Google. Unicode standardizes the strings of characters that various messaging apps and computer programs turn into little pictures so that an emoji created in one app will still mean the same thing when it shows up in another.

While it has been working on completing “gender pairs” for some time (for example, adding a prince option to a princess), the Consortium tends to work quite slowly. The next set of new additions to be included in Unicode 10.0 isn’t scheduled to be finalized until the fourth quarter of this year and then rolled out in June 2017.

Thus, to push gender-balanced emoji out to the masses more quickly, the Consortium decided to use a mechanism that combines existing emoji into new pictures rather than creating entirely new emoji. The same mechanism is already used to display diverse family groupings, for example.

For more on emoji, watch our video.

That means the makers of your favorite messaging apps could start designing new female and male welders, surfers, and so on, and then roll them out by the end of 2016.

“We hope these updates help make emoji just a little more representative of the millions of people around the [world] who use them,” wrote Nicole Bleuel, marketing lead and diversity champion for Google’s Emoji team in a blog post on Friday. And instead of writing out “world,” Bleuel used its emoji representation instead.

About the Author
By David Meyer
LinkedIn icon
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

UFO files show Buzz Aldrin saw a ‘sizeable’ object close to the moon and a ‘fairly bright light source’ that the Apollo 11 crew felt could be a laser
Innovationspace
UFO files show Buzz Aldrin saw a ‘sizeable’ object close to the moon and a ‘fairly bright light source’ that the Apollo 11 crew felt could be a laser
By Seung Min Kim, Collin Binkley and The Associated PressMay 9, 2026
10 hours ago
joaquin
Commentary250 Years of Innovation
Johnson & Johnson CEO: America’s innovation advantage starts with health 
By Joaquin DuatoMay 9, 2026
13 hours ago
Qualcomm’s CEO is working with ‘pretty much all’ major AI players on top-secret devices—and powering OpenAI’s first push into hardware
AIQualcomm
Qualcomm’s CEO is working with ‘pretty much all’ major AI players on top-secret devices—and powering OpenAI’s first push into hardware
By Eva RoytburgMay 9, 2026
14 hours ago
reed
CommentaryRetirement
Tim Cook and Reed Hastings just showed every CEO how to leave gracefully
By Paul HardartMay 9, 2026
16 hours ago
Companies are abandoning ‘peanut butter’ raises as pay-for-performance takes over the workplace in the AI era
Future of WorkTech
Companies are abandoning ‘peanut butter’ raises as pay-for-performance takes over the workplace in the AI era
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezMay 9, 2026
17 hours ago
Goldman Sachs’ tech boss says tracking individual AI usage isn’t useful. He just watches how fast his 12,000 engineers move from idea to production
AIBanks
Goldman Sachs’ tech boss says tracking individual AI usage isn’t useful. He just watches how fast his 12,000 engineers move from idea to production
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezMay 8, 2026
1 day ago

Most Popular

Ted Cruz says the quiet part out loud: Trump accounts are Social Security personal accounts as GOP senator reveals 'dirty little secret'
Politics
Ted Cruz says the quiet part out loud: Trump accounts are Social Security personal accounts as GOP senator reveals 'dirty little secret'
By Jason MaMay 9, 2026
7 hours ago
'Employers are increasingly turning to degree and GPA' in hiring: Recruiters retreat from ‘talent is everywhere,’ double down on top colleges
Future of Work
'Employers are increasingly turning to degree and GPA' in hiring: Recruiters retreat from ‘talent is everywhere,’ double down on top colleges
By Jake AngeloMay 9, 2026
11 hours ago
A Michigan farm town voted down plans for a giant OpenAI-Oracle data center. Weeks later, construction began
Magazine
A Michigan farm town voted down plans for a giant OpenAI-Oracle data center. Weeks later, construction began
By Sharon GoldmanMay 6, 2026
4 days ago
California farmers must destroy 420,000 peach trees after Del Monte closes its canneries and cancels more than $550 million in long-term contracts
North America
California farmers must destroy 420,000 peach trees after Del Monte closes its canneries and cancels more than $550 million in long-term contracts
By Sasha RogelbergMay 7, 2026
2 days ago
You're probably safe from the Hantavirus outbreak, but here's what you absolutely must not do, experts say
Politics
You're probably safe from the Hantavirus outbreak, but here's what you absolutely must not do, experts say
By Catherina GioinoMay 8, 2026
1 day ago
The CEO of Maersk, which ships 14% of everything you buy, said the Iran war is adding $500 million in monthly costs it's trying not to pass down
Energy
The CEO of Maersk, which ships 14% of everything you buy, said the Iran war is adding $500 million in monthly costs it's trying not to pass down
By Sasha RogelbergMay 8, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.