SAN FRANCISCO – Female emoji of color have joined the workforce.
Eleven new emoji representing both women and men in a variety of professions have been approved by Unicode Emoji Subcommittee. The new professions include a farmer, a chef, a doctor and a computer scientist.
Google employees originally proposed adding more professional emoji in May with the goal of “highlighting the diversity of women’s careers and empowering girls everywhere.”
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company originally proposed 13 new emoji, of which the factory line worker and the dentist did not get approved by Unicode.
“These new emoji are one of several efforts we’re making to better represent women in technology, and to connect girls with the education and resources they need to pursue careers in STEM,” Google said in a press release.
Additionally, 33 existing emoji which previously only showed one gender – such as the woman flipping her hair, or the man weightlifting – will now show both genders.
Google’s emoji may be diverse, but the company’s actual workforce is far from it. Seven out of ten of itsemployees are men. Latinos make up just 3% of the U.S. workforce, and African Americans, 2%.
Google is not the only tech company struggling to achieve a less white, male employee base that more reflects its global customer base. The same day Unicode approved the diverse professional emoji, Facebook released its third diversity report to show nearly seven out of every ten of its global employees are male, and just 2 out of every U.S. 100 workers are black. Apple’s U.S. employees are 59.5% white and 70% male.
