As new media forms expand their audience to include people from around the world, the issue of equal emoji representation continues to pop up. Equal representation in emojis sounds semi-trivial, but because the small, cartoonish figures are a regular part of dialogue these days, representation through emojis is just as important as representation in other media platforms.

Recently, a young woman in Saudi Arabia, Rayouf Alhumedhi, called on the Unicode Consortium (the organization which approves keyboard standards) to add a woman wearing a hijab to the emoji keyboard. Without that emoji the 550 million Muslim women that wear hijabs throughout the world are not represented anywhere on the emoji keyboard. The hijab has been a popular topic of conversation recently, especially in Europe where debates about when and where it is acceptable to wear Muslim headscarves have arisen.

This is also not the first time the issue of emoji representation has come up though. Last March there was a widespread call for better representation of women in emoji-form. Instead of brides, dancers and princesses, several women petitioned for representations of women as doctors, businesspeople, and other professional roles.

Increasing the representation of women, different races, and different cultural practices in the emoji keyboard is a small but critical step towards more cultural acceptance and gender equality around the world.

MaryCate Most