Rayouf Alhumedhi, a Saudi-born teenager currently living in Germany is the lead author on a new proposal for a hijab emoji to the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit that governs the creation and approval of emoji.
Emojis are popular small images that are available on mobile and desktop keyboards that are increasingly adding to, and even replacing, text conversations. There are currently no emojis that depict the hijab or keffiyeh. The name emoji comes from the Japanese word for “picture character.”
A new “hijab emoji” would give Saudi men and women an identifiable icon if approved.
Sending an emoji can be easier than typing up a full response. As Mashable notes, these days “everything needs to be conveyed immediately, and nothing is smaller or more expressive than an image” like the emoji.
Alhumedhi’s proposal is backed by one of Reddit’s co-founders.
Alhumedhi told Abby Ohlheiser of the Washington Post in an excellent feature on how the emoji proposal came to be. “I wanted something to represent me, alongside the millions of women who wear the headscarf every day, and pride themselves on wearing the headscarf,” she said.
