13-year-old girl proposes new emojis to provide representation for Muslim women

Samantha Durham | Assistant Opinion Editor

One of the things that many enjoy the most about their smartphones or other devices is the ability to use emojis. While some people are not as interested in them, others (myself included) love to add an emoji here and there to make conversations, statuses or tweets a little more personalized. Emojis are great because they make it easy to explain things in the world around us like feelings, places, other people or maybe just yourself. But, emojis are all fun and games, until you get left out of the loop. That is how Rayouf Alhumedi feels today.

Rayouf Alhumedi is a Muslim teenager living in Germany who found it challenging to use the emoji’s she had properly because none of them truly represented her or her way of life. It just seems like the smartphone keyboard, while vast in options, is still limited. “Why is there not a symbol for women in a head scarf or hijab?”, she asked.

Alhumedi wrote to Apple with her question and received no response, according to The New York Times. However, this did not discourage her, as she went on to create a proposal for her idea. This stated,“Roughly 550 million Muslim women on this earth pride themselves on wearing the hijab. With this enormous number of people, not a single space on the keyboard is reserved for them.” Her proposal was emailed to Unicode Consortium, which caught the eyes of many.

While this may seem like a simple issue about emojis, it truly is more than that, as Alhumedi’s proposal has raised questions, concerns and support all over the world. The New York Times reported that Alhumedi responded to many critics on Reddit who felt that these two new emojis would be a representation of female oppression. Alhumedi replied, stating, “It might seem baffling, but when I wear the head scarf I actually feel liberated because I’m in control of what I want to cover. The head scarf allows for people to see past a woman’s beauty and see her for her knowledge”.

This debate seems to have spread all across the globe. Many women across the globe are crying out for a better overall representation of women overall. That includes dress, religion, race and even career representation. Many in Europe are experiencing a debate over Muslim women being able to wear a burkini, especially after France made an effort to ban them all together.

According to The New York Times, more than 1,000 women responded to a call for perspective and explained that their lives as Muslim women in France and Belgium are challenging. Germany recently even called for restrictions on face veils in schools, universities and even while driving. Regulations preventing women from covering their faces with veils seem to be more common than people think. Some women even explained to The New York Times that they have experienced being sworn at and spit on in public for displaying who they are.

While this story is about the proposed new emojis for women, this story also brings up some issues that some women face around the world.

First, let me just say I think it is absolutely absurd that people feel they have the right to disrespect and spit on people for being different, dressing different or thinking different than they do. Shame on them and I feel so sorry for the women that have been treated with such a lack of respect.

This emoji proposal is so much more than adding new faces to your smartphone. It is about equality and a feeling of being acknowledged and represented, much more than it is about having a face on a phone.

The world has a whole lot of growing up to do in regards to this issue and issues similar to this overall. It breaks my heart that women around the world are disrespected and mistreated by the community for wearing head scarves or hijabs. They have the right to a good, quality life and also deserve the same amount of respect as everyone else. That is a right we all deserve as human beings, regardless of how we dress, what we believe or what language we speak.

We all need to be aware of this issue and also be accepting of others. It’s not fair that women are oppressed, nor is it fair that anyone is oppressed at all. But, we can all make little changes to stop the oppression and disrespectful behavior. Come to some one’s defense if you see something like this happening. Do not let people get away with being mean, hateful and ignorant.

I fully support this proposal and I think it would be a great thing for Muslim women everywhere to be represented like the majority of other groups. I truly hope that Apple makes the adjustment and adds these beautiful women to the emoji group because they deserve to be their equally as much as anyone else. Not all women are princesses but all women deserve to be treated with the respect of one and be accurately represented.