Apple recently released a statement saying in 2020 they will be adding androgynous looking emojis to accompany the male and female presenting emojis that already exist.
The media was quick to announce that Apple was adding ‘non-binary emojis’ to the selection, which has inevitably caused controversy.
While some people don’t really understand why you need things like a ‘non-binary’ carrot farmer emoji, it is a great step to add more diverse representation to the emoji collection.
However, the actual emojis are androgynous. This, along with the language used around them, enforces outdated stereotypes about how people should present according to gender.
This creation is undoubtedly borne from increased conversation about being non-binary and people expressing their gender in various ways. It’s definitely great that the conversation is having an effect on such big companies, but it’s important to note that technically these emojis aren’t non-binary at all.
To understand why they aren’t non-binary, we must consider the difference between who you are (your gender identity) and how you dress (your gender expression). Who you are in terms of gender relates to how you experience your own inner sense of self – for example as a man, woman or a non-binary person. Your gender expression is how you choose to present yourself.
Traditionally women dress femininely and men dress in a masculine manner. So when we think of non-binary people, the assumption is that they will be somewhere in between that, looking androgynous.
But that isn’t always the case. There are people who don’t conform to people’s expectations of how to dress. There are women who have short hair and dress more masculine and we have men who use make-up and wear more feminine attire – and everything in between.
People can present in all sorts of ways. It should go without saying that a woman who never wears dresses, for example, is no less of a woman.
Your clothes don’t make you who you are, even though they can be a tool to let us express ourselves in a way that makes us comfortable and ensure we are seen how we want to be.
The same goes for non-binary people. Non-binary people can dress in a variety of ways and there are plenty of non-binary people who present in a feminine or a masculine manner.
I personally don’t experience myself entirely as a man or a woman, even though my experience of my gender is indefinitely more feminine. This means that the way I dress is more feminine, and inevitably my life experiences align with the experiences of women. It doesn’t take away from how I experience my own sense of gender, however.
So when we talk about these emojis, it’s important to realise that they aren’t necessarily non-binary.
The more logical way to describe the emojis would be to say that they are androgynous. It doesn’t even have to be that complicated, as they are simply just another look for us to choose from. How can more choice be a bad thing?
In the grand scheme of things this might not seem like a big deal. But if we are to truly understand what being non-binary is, we have to stop seeing it as purely an aesthetic and acknowledge it as a valid sense of self.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/06/the-problem-with-calling-the-new-androgynous-emojis-non-binary-11038163/
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