Emoji serve as small visual representations of ourselves. But in order to do this, it helps if they look like us. Just over a year ago, the Unicode Standard added modifiers for skin tone. Now Unicode is encouraging gender equality as well.

Many current emoji depict men doing a wide range of activities, with women performing traditional or stereotypical roles, such as being a princess or wearing a wedding gown. Now the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee is adding eleven new professional emoji in both male and female options. These include such careers as being an engineer, a cook, a scientist, a farmer, and a computer programmer.

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Unicode is also expanding thirty-three existing emoji with male and female versions. Now women can also run, and men can choose to cut hair.

All of these are also available in the various skin tones, so neither gender nor race limit which one emoji a person can relate to.

Source: Official Google Blog