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👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji

[woo m-uh n helth wur-ker ih-moh-jee]

What does 👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji mean?

The 👩‍⚕️ is ready to see you.

The woman health worker emoji, 👩‍⚕️, represents a woman who works as a doctor or nurse, though she can really stand for any female professional in the healthcare industry, such as pharmacist or physical therapist. People, especially women, use the emoji to mark content about healthcare work, education, accomplishments, or health concerns, big and small.

Related words:

Where does 👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji come from?

The woman healthcare worker emoji was pioneered in May 2016 by a group of Google employees proposing 13 new emoji featuring women in professional roles and their male counterparts. They wanted to “better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world.”

In their proposal to Unicode, the nonprofit consortium that standardizes computer language, the group wrote: “Our proposal is to create a new set of emoji that represents a wide range of professions for women and men with a goal of highlighting the diversity of women’s careers and empowering girls everywhere.”

In addition to two health care workers—one in a lab coat and with stethoscope for a doctor and one with a medical mask and in scrubs for a nurse—they proposed a woman teacher, coder, rockstar, food service worker, among others.

These emoji glass ceiling breakers were inspired by Amy Butcher’s March 2016 New York Times op-ed “Emoji Feminism.” In it, she complained about the lack of emoji depicting strong, successful women, as they were otherwise represented in emojidom as princesses 👸, brides 👰, and, on most platforms, salsa dancers 💃.

Always, the feminine hygiene company, meanwhile, had launched the hashtag campaign “#LikeAGirl” in March 2016 asking for suggestions of emoji representing women.

Much to everyone’s surprise, in July 2016 Unicode approved (under Emoji 4.0) almost all of the proposed professional women emoji. It was a surprise not because Unicode is known for being sexist per se, but because the consortium had just announced their list of newly approved emoji the previous month. They must have been feeling the pressure.

Unicode, though, only approved one of the two healthcare workers, the one with the stethoscope, which became our woman health worker 👩‍⚕️, as there was already a face with medical mask emoji 😷, albeit gender-neutral.

Across platforms, the woman health worker emoji shows the vendor’s default woman emoji (👩) in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck, as shown in the screenshot from Emojipedia below.

Examples of 👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji

Found out today I passed my final ever University essay. 🙌 After these past 3 years, in September I will officially be a nurse.👩‍⚕️🎉✨
@lynseymarieCYP, July, 2018
Good morning. Early start for me!!😢Off to start my nursing duties👩‍⚕️. Gotta keep my patients well. 😊Another day closer to my goal. #XRP 😄

@Lis_xrp, July, 2018
The woman in the health care emoji sports a stethoscope and lab coat, just like her male peers. Health care is one of the only fields where a woman might earn more, on average, than a man in the same position.
Alex Janin, TakePart, May, 2016

Who uses 👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji?

True to the intention of the emoji, many women in the healthcare profession use the woman health worker emoji. It is often used by women to mark a milestone on the path to a healthcare career: admittance to a school, graduation, or passing various certifications, for instance.

Hospitals will use the emoji to celebrate their hardworking employees, especially on May 11, International Nurses’ Day.

Sometimes people will use the woman health worker emoji to punctuate a tweet that is about a health concern, whether it be public health …

… or just playing doctor at home.

Pet-owners also use the woman health worker emoji to announce their furry friends are safely back from the vet, as there isn’t a vet emoji yet. Time for a new proposal to Unicode? You heard it here first.

Back at UC Davis for a CT scan and to have some dead teeth removed. Everyone here is so nice and takes such great care of me 😸 #healthcheck #👩‍⚕️ #sammiethekitten #littlesister #adoptdontshop #kitten #rescuecat #caaaat #catsofinstagram #instacat #meow #katt #hermes_n_sammie

A post shared by Hermès & Sammie (@hermes_n_sammie) on

NOTE

This is not meant to be a formal definition of 👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of 👩‍⚕️ Woman Health Worker emoji that will help our users expand their word mastery.