Teenager Advocating for Hijab Emoji Wants Equality and Representation

The Unicode Consortium has been hard at work trying to make the emoji keyboard more inclusive and truer to the diversity of humankind, since, well, people all over the world use emoji. But one teen is challenging the organization to take it a step further. Rayouf Alhumedhi, a 15-year-old from Saudi Arabia, wants Unicode to include a hijab-wearing emoji in 2017.

“We applaud Unicode for the diversification of emojis in recent years. However, this does not mean it should stop now. With the amount of difference in this world, we must be represented,” she wrote in a proposal. “The woman in the headscarf would be a terrific addition to the mosque and Islam symbol emojis, as the hijab is one of the most globally recognized iconic representations of Islam.”

She has a point. There is an enormous population of Muslim women on the planet. Why not have emoji to represent them? And it looks like Unicode is game. According to BuzzFeed, a member of Unicode’s subcommittee helped Alhumedhi improve on the proposal she initially wrote, so clearly there is openness there.

Alhumedhi’s recommendation also reminds us that emoji still have a way to go in terms of diversity. There is a petition calling for a redhead emoji. The keyboard still doesn’t include an Afro emoji, leaving out an entire population of people with kinky hair. Also, what about curly-haired emoji? An emoji proudly rocking a yarmulke? Burkini emoji? A woman with a pixie cut?

The good news is that Unicode seems to be down for inclusion, so who knows? Come 2017, hijab-wearing women all over the world may have an emoji that represents them. And that’s a wonderful thing!

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