Google develops new emojis to improve representation of women at work

A group of workers at Google have developed 13 new emojis designed to represent “a wide range of professions for women and men with a goal of highlighting the diversity of women's careers and empowering girls everywhere." Although the primary purpose of the emojis is “to improve the representation of women,” each new emoji has both a female and a male symbol. Professions represented include scientists, businesspeople, healthcare workers and rock stars. The new emojis have been submitted to the Unicode Consortium, the body that approves such symbols, and could be available from the end of 2016. This week, Durex has also requested approval for a condom emoji that it hopes will encourage teenagers to talk freely about sexual health.

Watch this: Google pushes for more girl power in emojis 02:49

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In a recent submission made to the Unicode Consortium [PDF], the body responsible for approving new emojis, a group of Google employees has proposed "a new set of emoji that represents a wide range of professions for women and men with a goal of highlighting the diversity of women's careers and empowering girls everywhere."

The 13 new emojis include heathcare workers, scientists, businesspeople and even rock stars. The professions were chosen based on what would best represent the modern workforce. While "the urgency to improve the representation of women" was a key concern, each new professional emoji also came with an associated male counterpart.

Emojis for awareness isn't as crazy as it sounds, with condom company Durex also petitioning the Unicode Consortium this week for a condom emoji to "empower [teens] to talk openly about protection" noting that communication is "vital to prevent STIs, HIV and AIDS."

The group behind the professional women emojis pointed to Amy Butcher's Emoji Feminism op ed as a major inspiration, and it hopes to have the new emojis filling up your message windows by the end of 2016.

Diversity and representation is an increasingly important issue in the tech world. Google itself was one of the first Silicon Valley giants to divulge its diversity report. The search company was still sitting at the industry standard of around 30 percent women in 2015.