Apple’s iOS 10 Emoji Will Bust Gender Stereotypes

iOS 10 Emoji (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

iOS 10 Emoji (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Apple’s iOS update will also bring a slew of emoji changes to the Messages app. But these emoji will now be more diverse and gender-inclusive.

Women will now be represented with professions that had previously only be available for men, such as surfing, police officers and doctors. The reverse will hold true for the men, who will now have the option to use emoji depicting haircuts and massages.

There will also be new family emoji, showing single mothers and fathers with their children. A rainbow flag has also made it into the mix, signifying Apple’s support for marriage equality (insert hallelujah-hands emoji here).

This spring, Google first brought new emoji designs to the Unicode Consortium, the committee that oversees the selection, development and implementation of new emoji. Apple is also a member of the Consortium, and moved forward in developing its own emoji.

This isn’t the first time emoji have been updated for diversity. Last year’s release of iOS 9.1 included the debut of multiple skin tones. This upcoming batch of new inclusive emoji will have 100+ iterations, taking skin tone into account.

iOS 10 will debut later this fall.

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