Kelly Wallace from CNN recently published an article where she reacted to a video created by Always in their #LikeAGirl series. In the video, young girls are asked questions about emojis, specifically the female ones, and how they feel about them. Check out the video here:
After watching this video, I couldn’t help but agree with what these girls had to say. All of the emojis in the profession section are men. These emojis include a male police officer and a male detective while the only female caricatures are a bride and a princess. Young girls are using emojis all of the time, and the lack of women with careers could have a negative influence on them. Are young girls growing up believing that all they can be is a bride? What Apple should bring in is a female police officer, a female detective, and a groom. There is clearly a lack of power in female emojis, but men are not portrayed in emotional roles either. Who says men can’t be grooms? Or a man can’t enjoy a hair cut or a manicure? Emojis are blatantly sexist, but we’ve never realized it until today.
The next point that the girls in the video make is that none of the sports-themed emojis have girls in them, and they are right. The emojis under the “Activity” category include a man boating, a man swimming, a man surfing, a man playing basketball, a man lifting weights, a man riding a bike and a man riding a horse. I’m not sure if the team who creates emojis knows this but, girls play sports too. I still find it extremely strange that one can change the race of an emoji, but not the gender. Because of this small detail, girls are subconsciously being persuaded to believe that the only things they can do are put on lipstick, paint their nails, and wear pink all of the time. Listen ladies, if you want to be a jock and wear pink, be my guest. Men, if you want to be a jock and wear pink, be my guest.
Let’s take a gander at some unnecessary emojis. There’s a camel, but not a female doctor. You can find a snowman with and without snow in the background, but there is no female soccer player to be found. There’s even a honey pot, but a female in a blazer is absent from the emoji lineup. This issue has only recently been brought to the attention of the media, so who knows how long it will be until enough people can get together to make a change. As said by many before, this is only a small step in finding equality for women. But in order to make big changes, we should start with the small things. If we can get young girls to realize that they can have a career and play sports, they will gain the confidence to eventually take more steps in the fight toward equality for women.
