Though emojis have increasingly become a part of digital communication, the current emoji choices are not inclusive and do not fully reflect society's diversity. The standard emoji language tends to enforce stereotypes — there are only male police officers and construction workers and only female brides and dancers.
There is a turban emoji but no hijab emoji, despite over 550 million Muslim women worldwide wearing the headscarf known as the hijab. 15-year-old Rayouf Alhumedhi is determined to change that and submitted a petition to the Unicode Consortium to consider adding the hijab emoji to the new emojis to be released in 2017.
Alhumedhi, who lives in Germany but is originally from Saudi Arabia, has garnered support in her quest for representation in the tech sector.
"Emoji may not seem like a big deal, but it's one more way for a lot of people to feel acknowledged and represented — and that's a good thing," said Alexis Ohanian, the Reddit co-founder who has been championing Alhumedi's proposal.
While Alhumedhi's determination and ability to inspire tech founders to this cause is noteworthy, the fact that she needs a petition and large-scale outside assistance to create change brings up the question of whether better representation in the tech sector workforce should have instead come from within.
Companies with tech workforces that are inclusive of minorities tend to reflect those ideas in the company culture and in the ideas that are developed. A recent study done by Lawless Research for Techstars and Chase for Business revealed that 72 percent of tech companies believe building a diverse workforce is very important and 81 percent acknowledge that a diverse workforce enhances innovation and creativity. The study interviewed over 700 founders of tech startups and found that only 12 percent employed five or more employees from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds.
While the importance of diversity is widely acknowledged in the industry, proportional representation of women and minorities is scarce. The same study found that new companies, specifically those founded in the past two years, are least likely to employ women and minorities.
"Some minorities don't like the uncomfortableness of not having a stable job. If I grew up not having a very stable economic situation, then when I graduate, I want a stable job that gives me things like health insurance," said Professor Trina Gregory, who teaches technology, programming, and mobile app development at USC.
Though there is ample evidence for the benefits of diversity, including increased innovation and creativity, tech companies are slow to adopt these practices.
"I'm not sure why. From what I've seen, I think it's because most companies don't have diversity departments and may not understand how to recruit people of color," said Oscar Menjivar, an entrepreneur who develops tech programs for low-income communities in Los Angeles.
The technology sector needs more diversity in order to better reflect society and represent minorities in a more inclusive way. Then perhaps diversity — and a hijab emoji — would have developed on its own.
Reach Staff Reporter Dina Bahgat here, or follow her on Twitter.
Annenberg Media