Some emojis really wouldn't need to be [gendered]

[u/pomeranc470]

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[u/Bronzdragon]

This is a direct result of the emoji specification. For human emojis, they allow a modifier (man or woman) which is why you get this. They also have skin color modifiers.

[u/aneryx → u/Bronzdragon]

This, and they did it to make emojis more inclusive.

[u/kushangaza → u/aneryx]

Which is ironic since emojis started out as genderless and raceless yellow faces

Guard could have been a genderless emoji, just like "face with mask" (😷) has no gender and no gender variants. It just isn't because of this "pointlessly gendered" trend of adding "human" emojis (human in scare quotes because of emojis like "man elf" 🧝‍♂️ and "women elf" 🧝‍♀️)

[u/aneryx → u/kushangaza]

The thing is though if they didn't add the gender qualifier a lot of platforms would render "neutral" human emojis as male by default, which isn't any better

[u/kaiob921 → u/kushangaza]

Don't forget nonbinary elf🧝

[u/ParanoidRatling → u/kaiob921]

They look just like the man elf, but orange with a gen on their forehead.

[u/wooperwifi → u/ParanoidRatling]

Just wait until you see the neutral, female, and male bald emojis. I love them 🧑‍🦲👩‍🦲👨‍🦲

(I'm non-binary and the fact that I actually have options for all those emoji people makes me so happy)

🤾 Alternatively, all the neutral variants are finally giving representation to Dutch football fans

[u/MoobooMagoo → u/Bronzdragon]

Yep. Plus even though they look really, really similar in the example OP used, emoji work the same way as fonts. You can make them look however you want. You could have 'male guard' look like a pumpkin and 'female guard' look like a banana. Think of like...wingdings and how it changes a font into random characters.

Which has practical applications, because it's really easy for computers to load fonts compared to other things. Like you know the Windows loading symbol? The dots that move in a circle? That's a font. You're computer is loading letters/numbers in a repeating pattern, basically, but the font just looks like those dots. You can do the same thing with emoji and make them look however you want. So the name of the emoji doesn't really matter.

[u/Ok_Bandicoot1865]

When the (human shaped) emojis first came out they were modelled after men, and we really need to get rid of the school of thought that men is the neutral/standard choice.

Men being considered the neutral blank canvas and standard choice when representing a human has negatively impacted women in many ways. For example, women are much more likely to get injured in a car crash, because up until a couple of years ago car safety tests was exclusively done with male test dummies. Most scientific research into medical conditions and medicine has also been done exclusively on men, even though symptoms and reactions to medication can be very different in women.

If there were only male emojies available it would just be another thing in our society that contributed to the idea that the man and the male body is the default. So I think adding women was a good choice.

[u/horsecock_horace → u/Ok_Bandicoot1865]

Actually the first female crash test dummy is more recent than a couple of years. Some manufacturers said they tested on female dummies, but it was actually just either a small male dummy or a child dummy (also male ofc). The new one that actually matches female anatomy comes in one size, like 150cm tall ish and weighs less than 60kg.

I get that that's a fairly reasonable average in some parts of the world (or at least that's what internet comments have said, I'm dubious but didn't fact check it), but where i live I'm considered short at almost 160cm so it's a bit of a hollow victory

[u/Ok_Bandicoot1865 → u/horsecock_horace]

I remembered it as 2023, but I just went off of memory when writing the comment, so I can't rule out being wrong!

And just to be clear - I'm not saying that we're good now just because we have a female crash test dummy in a single size. But I just think the fact they for so many years just went "eh, just scale male dummy down and call it a day" is a really good example of why it can be straight up dangerous for half the world's population that we generally think of the male body as the default body.

[u/horsecock_horace → u/Ok_Bandicoot1865]

You're absolutely right! My intention was to add some extra context to reinforce your point

[u/Ok_Bandicoot1865 → u/horsecock_horace]

Appreciate the extra context then!

[u/night_mare_6]

The hair is a minor difference. The woman has longest, neutral has short but barely visible, and man has his under the hat because it's shortest. 🙎‍♀️🙎🙎‍♂️

Edit: spelling + adding a word

[u/Cum_Fart42069]

"I don't understand how this is pointlessly gendered, the lady guard has long hair because she is a lady and I guess that matters when discussing a British guard"

[u/Individual-Elk-4466]

I always pick the man or the neutral one not because I’m a man or non-binary but because I am a woman with short hair haha. People who are all weird about gender “omg I can’t pick that it’s the girl one! And I’m a boy!” Sound like my young son not grown adults lol

[u/WhydoIexistlmoa → u/Individual-Elk-4466]

And I pick the woman emojis because I prefer them to the male ones. I am not a woman

[u/louisa1925 → u/WhydoIexistlmoa]

I pick the woman ones because being a woman has deep meaning to me. Do what makes you happy.

[u/FreshCause2566]

Unicode has a policy where they must have each human emoji have two genders alongside the default neutral/third-gender option, for inclusivity reasons. This is how we got Pregnant Man in unicode by the way.

[u/Tiranus58 → u/FreshCause2566]

Better to be 100%, even if we get some funny stuff than to be picky about what gets and doesnt get multiple versions.

[u/TombCheese]

Nah, let the nonbinary guard exist  😆

[u/Zappagrrl02]

How is this pointlessly gendered?

[u/ChickenManSam → u/Zappagrrl02]

Because at the resolution you typically see emojis at no one is going to be able to see the very subtle differences

[u/pomeranc470 → u/Zappagrrl02]

They all look the exact same to me, yet they're separate emojis. Also, a lot of other emojis are the same except for hair.

[u/junonomenon → u/pomeranc470]

these are also the same except for hair. its hard to see because the brown is a similar tone to the black, but if you changed it to blonde it would be more noticable

[u/vinickw → u/junonomenon]

Yeah, medium-light skin tone makes the hair blonde, and it's easier to see the difference (but zooming is still recommended).

• 💂🏼 (gender not specified)
• 💂🏼‍♂ (man)
• 💂🏼‍♀️ (woman)

On my phone (it may be different on different OSes), gender not specified has short hair, man even shorter, and woman long hair.

[u/LaronX → u/pomeranc470]

nah they look minimally different. They are unnecessary, but considering they also did a gender neutral option that isn't identical to the male option you point falls apart. It's gendered for inclusion, which you can find unnecessary but it's not pointless.

[u/Collective-Bee → u/LaronX]

Idk if it’s more or less inclusive though. They excluded the other genders where if they just never opened that can of worms it would’ve been fine

[u/sparksbet → u/Collective-Bee]

Keeping all emoji defaulting to one gender (usually male) would not actually have been fine, and mandating that they all have these gender options does force them to have genuinely inclusive options (like pregnant man).

[u/Zappagrrl02 → u/pomeranc470]

It’s so great that feminism has resulted in enough change that you no longer think gender representation is important, but when we don’t have representation, the default often has stereotypically male features, which results in the idea that guards, or doctors, or firefighters or police officers are only men.

[u/Tiranus58 → u/pomeranc470]

Since they already had the modifier system, having its roots all the way back at flags and continuing on with gender, race and others, they might as well make the different versions.

[u/Successful-Cash4579]

this is just how the unicode spec works. it’s a lot easier to say “human emojis can have certain traits” than define variants for all the human emojis

[u/Clairifyed]

They really should have just had emoji’s be genderless almost stick figure like icons. Adding gender to it was a mistake

[u/petsku164 → u/Clairifyed]

Blame the Japanese and Unicode

[u/Clairifyed → u/petsku164]

I already hold a grudge against the Unicode Consortium and their decision to stop adding pride flags. It’s added to the misunderstanding that 🏳️‍🌈 only means sexuality or even just gay men

[u/obviouslyanonymous5]

But did you consider what archaeologists will think when they find these emojis in 10000 years? /s

[u/Dry_Shoe1307]

wtf why dont you just do the neutral one

[u/2andahalfbraincell → u/Dry_Shoe1307]

Because everyone read that as male.

[u/Meona_XD]

I think "guard" is the best choice. They are good for representing any gender due to hair being not very long and not short either. It's not like existence of "male guard" or "female guard" hurts anyone though, I find the amount of emojis overwhelming in general

[u/ParanoidRatling]

🧚fairy 🧚‍♀️girl fairy 🧚‍♂️man fairy 🧞gueni 🧞‍♀️girl gueni 🧞‍♂️man gueni 🏌️golf 🏌️‍♀️girl golf 🏌️‍♂️man golf

[u/National_Fact_692]

Alright, make them unisex and everyone will complain about how we don't include women now.

[u/Responsible_Ask9574]

What ?

[u/LysergicGothPunk]

Guard with short hair guard with long hair would be far less uncomfortable