Emoji users will soon be able to select female versions of police officers, doctors and athletes after critics said the popular text-message cartoons discriminated against women by showing mainly men in professional roles.

人们很快就能在表情符号中选择女警官、女医生或者女运动员了。此前评论家表示当下流行的手机卡通表情符号中职业角色以男性形象居多，这是对女性的歧视。

The Unicode consortium, the body that decides global standards for emoji, said 33 existing characters would be altered to allow smartphone users to pick between male and female options.

统一码协会是决定世界通用表情符号的机构，该机构表示智能手机用户将有33个可选男女的角色表情符号。

In addition, a new set of 11 emoji showing people at work, including chefs, farmers and computer programmers, will display male and female versions, as well as several different skin tones.

除此以外，代表不同职业的一组新表情符号，将包括厨师、农民、计算机程序员等11个角色。这组符号不仅有男女两个版本，还有不同肤色可供用户选择。

Previously, phones had represented emoji such as "weightlifter" and "spy" as male characters, while "cutting hair" and "tipping" had been represented by females. Future updates to the iPhone and Android software will allow texters to choose between genders.

之前，手机上“举重运动员”和“特务”的表情符号都是男性，而“剪头发”和“给小费”都是女性。在将来苹果和安卓系统的新版本中，这些角色都有男女两种性别可选择。

Google, which had led a campaign to encourage more emoji showing women at work, said: "More than 90 percent of the world's online population use emoji. But while there's a huge range of emoji, there aren't a lot that highlight the diversity of women's careers, or empower young girls.

谷歌发起了一场运动来提倡表现职业女性的表情符号，谷歌表示：“全世界90%以上的网民使用表情符号。尽管表情符号数量庞大，但其中表现女性职业多样化的并不多，可供年轻女性使用的也不多。”

"We hope these updates help make emoji just a little more representative of the millions of people around the world who use them."

“我们希望这些更新能使表情符号更具代表性，方便世界各地用户使用。”

Other new emoji showing men and women in professional roles include factory workers, mechanics, office workers, scientists, singers and teachers.

其他的新表情符号代表了各行各业的男性和女性，包括工人、机修工、上班族、科学家、歌手和老师等。

The rise of text messaging apps such as WhatsApp and iMessage have made emoji – of which there are now more than 1,500 – a key form of communication. However, they have been criticised for a lack of diversity.

像WhatsApp和iMessage这样的信息应用的崛起已经使得1500多种表情符号成为交流的重要形式之一。然而它们却因为缺乏多元性而备受批评。

Last year, a range of ethnically-diverse emoji were introduced that allowed users to change from the default yellow to one of six skin tones, and a series showing same-sex couples and families were also added.

去年苹果推出了一组种族多元化的表情符号，用户可以把默认的黄皮肤改成六种肤色中的任意一种，同时也增加了一系列表现同性夫妇和家庭的表情符号。

On Friday, the charity Scope urged Unicode to add new emoji featuring disabled people and Paralympic athletes.

慈善组织Scope上周五强烈要求统一码协会增加残疾人士和残奥会运动员的表情符号。