A new emoji has been approved, depicting different genders feeding a baby.
The new emoji — entitled Person Feeding Baby, along with its gendered variants Woman Feeding Baby and Man Feeding Baby — isn’t the first time feeding a baby could be represented in baby form. A few years ago, Unicode approved an emoji depicting a woman breastfeeding. That emoji, however, is only available in one gender.
And while many platforms have not yet released their designs for the person, woman, and man feeding baby emojis, it’s probably safe to assume they will look similar to the breastfeeding emoji designs.
The proposal for the person, woman, and man feeding baby emojis explains the reasoning why Unicode approved them. It states: “Currently, the only emoji that depicts childcare is PERSON BREASTFEEDING and there are no emojis that depict men caring for their children.”
The proposal also explains that the inclusion of the person, woman, and man feeding baby emojis “destigmatizes bottle feeding children.” There are many reasons why a family might have to or choose to bottle feed their children, and the addition of this emoji recognizes that.
The emoji is set to release this fall on all emoji-supported messaging platforms.
