Are female emojis sexist?

[Lamb]

I was reading an article about female emojis and how teen girls tend to use emojis the most, yet the female ones are sexist and stereotypical. Is it harmful?

 

[tango]

I was reading an article about female emojis and how teen girls tend to use emojis the most, yet the female ones are sexist and stereotypical. Is it harmful?

I figure people will use things they identify with. We might think something is stereotypical but nobody is forced to use emojis, so if girls end up using lots of pink flowers and fluffy bunnies or whatever else it is they use, who are we to tell them otherwise?

 

[Lamb]

What if those female emojis don't include anything career related and are ONLY sweet little flowers, ponies and bunnies?

 

[tango]

What if those female emojis don't include anything career related and are ONLY sweet little flowers, ponies and bunnies?

So what if they are a bunch of flowers and bunnies? Does everything in a teenager's life have to be an affirmation of a career they may not even have decided yet?

Playing devil's advocate a little here, who decides that the emojis in question are "female" in the first place, other than perhaps the teenage girls who select them from a list?

 

[Lamb]

Well...they're pink and that's usually dedicated to girl things. They're very limited in what they are because boys get all the profession based emojis and the girls get maybe one or two? It's like saying to the girls they can't be anything else but pretty.

 

[Stravinsk]

I think female emojis should include construction workers, big rig drivers, warehouse laborers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, and any other mostly male dominated work because although females are perfectly capable of doing such work, it matters not that they usually don't choose it for themselves. For all must be fair in principle even if it is not representative of the reality, right?

Better question is if CNN is a reliable news source or "Always" Feminine products is just not trying to capitalize on a perceived social injustice for a bit of marketing time.

 

[psalms 91]

My question is who cares, they are emojis not actual discrimination

 

[tango]

Well...they're pink and that's usually dedicated to girl things. They're very limited in what they are because boys get all the profession based emojis and the girls get maybe one or two? It's like saying to the girls they can't be anything else but pretty.

Does something prevent teenage girls from using the "boy" emojis? If they want pink flowers and pretty things isn't it an imposition to demand they use something else?

If a girl wants to be a mechanic grease monkey she should be free to do so, doesn't the same apply if she wants to paint her nails pink and wear frilly dresses?

 

[Lamb]

It's not wrong to want to empower young girls into appreciating that they can be more than what is offered to them. Barefoot and pregnant went out with the stone age

 

[psalms 91]

Yeah your right about that

 

[tango]

It's not wrong to want to empower young girls into appreciating that they can be more than what is offered to them. Barefoot and pregnant went out with the stone age

I'm obviously missing something, what have emojis got to do with empowering people? If teenage girls choose pink flowers and bunnies what does that have to do with whether they are "empowered"? Can't they wear pink and stick bunnies over their conversation while still wanting to grow up to be a nuclear physicist?

 

[Lamb]

If ONLY pink bunnies and rainbows and ponies are offered to girls yet boys get offered things that give them encouragement for their future, what does that mean? You mentioned girls using the boys emojis...as a lady who was once a girl, seriously, that's not an option if you want to get teased. Best to have the girl emojis change for the better. Offer more for the girls to show them they aren't just pretty faces but can be intelligent beings as well.

 

[visionary]

Simplicity.. picture says a thousand words... emojis used regularly in Tweets

 

[tango]

If ONLY pink bunnies and rainbows and ponies are offered to girls yet boys get offered things that give them encouragement for their future, what does that mean? You mentioned girls using the boys emojis...as a lady who was once a girl, seriously, that's not an option if you want to get teased. Best to have the girl emojis change for the better. Offer more for the girls to show them they aren't just pretty faces but can be intelligent beings as well.

So you're saying the problem is that other girls would tease a girl who sent an emoji that wasn't a fluffy bunny or a pink flower?

If so then the problem isn't so much sexism as the expectations of teenage girls. If that's the case would you expect boys to tease each other for using fluffy bunny emojis, and if so is that any less sexist? If anything it seems silly to regard an emoji as being "girl" or "boy" emoji, but if people feel they have to slavishly follow the headings that someone else assigned to something I'd say there's a bigger issue in people not thinking for themselves.

In any event I'm not sure that girls would necessarily tease each other. When I helped with a youth group we had a girl who wanted to be a mechanic, then wanted to be a physicist. As far as I could see nobody teased her, either in the youth group or at school.

 

[Lamb]

Girls are cruel. You don't always see the teasing or the sadness within that comes from it. We're all good at covering it up.

 

[psalms 91]

so are boys

 

[tango]

Girls are cruel. You don't always see the teasing or the sadness within that comes from it. We're all good at covering it up.

I'm not sure what that has to do with emojis being sexist.

Quite aside from the fact that boys are also cruel (as Bill mentioned), how is adding a few wrenches and atomic particles and other "empowering" emojis under a "girls" heading going to change anything? If girls are going to be nasty to other girls because they didn't use the right flowers or the fluffy bunnies or whatever else, is anything really going to change just because there's now a pink wrench to select?

It seems to me the issue is teenagers of both genders being nasty to people who are Not Like Them. But that's no different to the way so many adults are when faced with people who are different in some way.

 

[MarkFL]

Unless a smilie has some universally accepted gender-specific trait, I tend to see them as gender neutral and applicable to everyone. From what I have seen, most fall into this category. :knit:

 

[George]

#emojilivesmatter

 

[psalms 91]

sexist? what an overused term