Woman Lifting Weights Emoji
U+1F3CB U+FE0F U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F:weight_lifting_woman:Skin tonesAbout Woman Lifting Weights ποΈββοΈ
Woman Lifting Weights () is part of the People & Body group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E4.0. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. On Discord it's . Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode. Pick a skin tone above to customize it.
Often associated with barbell, bodybuilder, deadlift, and 8 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
A woman hoisting a barbell overhead. That's the literal read. But ποΈββοΈ has grown into something bigger than gym selfies. It's become shorthand for strength in all its forms: physical, mental, emotional, "I just handled three back-to-back meetings and didn't lose my mind" strength.
The emoji was added in Emoji 4.0 in 2016, which is wild when you consider that women were banned from weightrooms entirely in the 1960s and '70s. Women's weightlifting didn't even appear at the Olympics until Sydney 2000. The gap between "women aren't allowed to touch a barbell" and "here's an emoji of a woman pressing one" is only about 40 years. Progress moved fast.
In everyday texting, it works double duty. Post-workout flexing ("leg day done ποΈββοΈ"), motivational hype ("you've got this ποΈββοΈπͺ"), and metaphorical heavy lifting ("carrying this project on my back ποΈββοΈ"). The metaphorical use has gotten more popular than the literal one, especially on Twitter and Slack where people aren't usually discussing actual deadlifts.
GymTok has turned ποΈββοΈ into a staple emoji. The #gymgirl hashtag on TikTok has billions of views, and the emoji appears in bios, workout check-in captions, and transformation video thumbnails constantly. It's part of the broader "gym girl era" trend where women post lifting content not as a niche interest but as a core identity marker.
The "that girl" aesthetic on TikTok (early mornings, green smoothies, journaling, hitting the gym) uses ποΈββοΈ as one of its signature emojis alongside π§ββοΈ and π₯. It signals discipline and self-improvement without being preachy about it.
In professional settings, the emoji works surprisingly well. People use it on Slack to signal they're doing heavy lifting on a project or carrying a big workload. It reads as resilient and capable. Unlike the flexed bicep πͺ which can come off as aggressive or boastful, the woman lifting weights reads as more composed.
Instagram fitness influencers use it in almost every post, usually paired with π₯ or β¨. The combo ποΈββοΈπͺπ₯ has become the unofficial gym selfie caption starter pack.
It represents a woman performing a barbell lift. People use it for actual gym content, fitness motivation, and, increasingly, as a metaphor for doing heavy lifting on any challenge: work projects, emotional labor, parenting, life in general.
The weightlifter family
What it means from...
From a crush, ποΈββοΈ is them showing off a bit. They want you to know they work out, or they're responding to your gym content as a way to connect over shared interests. It's a subtle flex, literally.
Partners use it to share workout updates ("just hit a PR ποΈββοΈ"), suggest gym dates, or hype each other up. It's a supportive emoji in relationships, usually paired with encouragement.
Between friends, this is accountability partner energy. "Gym tomorrow? ποΈββοΈ" or reacting to someone's gym story. It can also be metaphorical: "you're carrying this group project ποΈββοΈ" is a genuine compliment.
The metaphorical read dominates at work. "Thanks for doing the heavy lifting on this one ποΈββοΈ" is standard Slack speak. Some people use it as a status emoji during intense sprints or crunch periods.
Flirty or friendly?
ποΈββοΈ is solidly in friendly territory. It's about strength and fitness, not romance. The only time it reads as flirty is when it's a response to someone's gym photo or body, which shifts the meaning from "nice workout" to "I'm noticing you." Context does all the work here.
- β’Solo ποΈββοΈ = talking about fitness or metaphorical strength
- β’ποΈββοΈ as a reply to a gym selfie = could be flirty depending on who sends it
- β’ποΈββοΈπͺπ₯ = pure hype, usually friendly
- β’In a bio = identity marker, not a signal
Usually it's a response to gym content ("nice lift"), a compliment on someone's strength, or a metaphorical acknowledgment that someone's handling a lot. In a flirty context it can mean "I notice you work out," but that's context-dependent.
Emoji combos
Origin story
The WEIGHT LIFTER emoji was approved in Unicode 7.0 in 2014 at codepoint . Like most activity emojis of that era, it depicted a man by default on every platform. The gendered woman variant came two years later with Emoji 4.0 in 2016, as part of Apple's push to create female versions of activity emojis in iOS 10.
But the backstory of women and weightlifting is wilder than the emoji's timeline suggests. In the 1960s and '70s, most gyms in America literally barred women from the weightroom. The cultural assumption was that lifting would make women "too muscular" and therefore unfeminine. Title IX in 1972 cracked that open for college athletes, but social stigma lingered for decades.
Women's weightlifting wasn't added to the Olympics until the 2000 Sydney Games. That first competition produced an immediately messy bit of history: Tara Nott of the United States won gold in the 48kg class, but only because the initial winner, Bulgaria's Izabela Dragneva, tested positive for a banned substance three days later. Nott became the first women's Olympic weightlifting champion in history by default. She'd only been lifting for five years and was a former gymnast.
Fast forward to 2024: the Paris Olympics was the first truly gender-equal Games, with 50% female athletes. CrossFit has produced megastars like Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, who holds eight CrossFit Games titles and also competed in Olympic weightlifting at Rio 2016. The trajectory from weightroom bans to emoji representation took about 40 years.
Women's weightlifting: banned to Olympic
Design history
Around the world
In the United States and Western Europe, the emoji reads as fitness culture and empowerment. "Strong is the new skinny" landed as a cultural message in the 2010s, and the emoji rides that wave. CrossFit, Orange Theory, and gym selfie culture have normalized women lifting to the point where ποΈββοΈ needs no explanation.
In parts of the Middle East and South Asia, women's weightlifting still carries social stigma. Countries like Saudi Arabia only began sending female athletes to the Olympics in 2012. The emoji can represent aspiration and defiance in those contexts rather than casual gym talk.
In China and South Korea, the fitness aesthetic (马η²ηΊΏ/mΗjiΗxiΓ n in China, meaning "vest line" abs) has become aspirational on social media. The weightlifting emoji appears in workout and body transformation content, tied to both health and beauty standards.
In Latin America, particularly Brazil, CrossFit has exploded in popularity. Brazil has one of the highest per-capita gym memberships in the world, and the emoji shows up frequently in Portuguese-language fitness communities.
It's not officially designated as one, but the cultural context gives it that reading. Women were banned from weightrooms in the 1960s-70s and excluded from Olympic weightlifting until 2000. An emoji of a woman pressing a barbell overhead carries that history whether you intend it or not.
Women's weightlifting debuted at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, 104 years after men's weightlifting appeared at the first modern Games in 1896. Tara Nott of the USA won the first gold after the initial winner was disqualified for doping.
Activity emojis by Unicode frequency tier
Search interest
Often confused with
The flexed biceps (πͺ) represents raw strength or a general "you got this" energy. ποΈββοΈ is more specific: it's about the act of lifting, training, or doing the work. πͺ is the result; ποΈββοΈ is the process.
The flexed biceps (πͺ) represents raw strength or a general "you got this" energy. ποΈββοΈ is more specific: it's about the act of lifting, training, or doing the work. πͺ is the result; ποΈββοΈ is the process.
πͺ (flexed biceps) is about raw strength and hype energy. ποΈββοΈ is specifically about the act of lifting, training, or doing the work. Think of πͺ as the result and ποΈββοΈ as the process.
Do's and don'ts
- βDon't use it to comment on someone's body unsolicited
- βAvoid pairing it with body-shaming context, even as a joke
- βDon't send it in response to someone sharing about body image struggles
Absolutely. It's one of the most common metaphorical emojis in Slack and Teams. "Thanks for doing the heavy lifting on this ποΈββοΈ" is standard professional communication at this point.
On TikTok, ποΈββοΈ is core to the "gym girl era" and "that girl" aesthetics. Women use it in fitness transformation content, workout check-ins, and as a bio staple. The #gymgirl hashtag has billions of views.
Caption ideas
Aesthetic sets
Fun facts
- β’Women's weightlifting was added to the Olympics in 2000, 104 years after men's weightlifting debuted in 1896. That's over a century of exclusion.
- β’College women's athletic participation jumped from 15% to 43% between 1972 and 2001 thanks to Title IX. High school girls' participation went from 295,000 to 2.8 million in the same period.
- β’The base Person Lifting Weights emoji () was approved in Unicode 7.0 in 2014, but the woman variant didn't arrive until 2016. Two years of every weightlifting emoji being a man.
- β’The Paris 2024 Olympics was the first in history with a perfect 50/50 gender split among athletes.
- β’Female bodybuilders on Instagram negotiate what researchers call an "empowered femininity" where muscle and traditional femininity coexist rather than being treated as opposites.
Common misinterpretations
- β’Some people read ποΈββοΈ in work Slack as "I'm overworked and resentful" rather than "I'm handling it." If you mean it positively, pair it with something upbeat like πͺ or β¨.
- β’Sending ποΈββοΈ in response to someone's gym photo can be read as a body comment rather than a workout compliment. When in doubt, be explicit: "great form" or "those gains!" alongside the emoji.
In pop culture
- β’Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr holds eight CrossFit Games titles, the most in history for any gender. She also competed in Olympic weightlifting at Rio 2016, making her arguably the most complete strength athlete alive.
- β’Tara Nott became the first women's Olympic weightlifting champion at Sydney 2000, but only because the original winner tested positive for doping. She'd been lifting for just five years and was a former gymnast.
- β’Love Lies Bleeding (2024) is an A24 film starring Kristen Stewart as a gym manager who falls for a female bodybuilder. It was discussed as a queer feminist take on bodybuilding culture.
- β’The "That Girl" TikTok trend made morning gym sessions aspirational. Millions of videos feature women working out at 5am, drinking green juice, and journaling. The ποΈββοΈ emoji became a bio fixture for creators in the trend.
Trivia
For developers
- β’The woman lifting weights emoji is a complex ZWJ sequence: (Person Lifting Weights) + (VS16) + (ZWJ) + (Female Sign) + (VS16). That's 5 codepoints for 1 glyph.
- β’Note the extra Variation Selector-16 after the base codepoint. Without it, some platforms may render the text version of the weightlifter symbol instead of the emoji.
- β’Slack shortcode: . Discord: . These platforms handle the ZWJ sequence internally.
- β’Skin tone modifiers insert after the base codepoint and before the VS16: + skin tone + + + + .
The woman variant was added in Emoji 4.0 in 2016. The base Person Lifting Weights emoji was approved in Unicode 7.0 in 2014 but depicted a man on all platforms until the gendered variants arrived.
Yes. All five Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers work with ποΈββοΈ. The skin tone goes between the base weightlifter codepoint and the rest of the ZWJ sequence.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What does ποΈββοΈ mean to you?
Select all that apply
- Woman Lifting Weights Emoji (emojipedia.org)
- Person Lifting Weights Emoji (emojipedia.org)
- iOS 10 Gendered Emoji List (blog.emojipedia.org)
- Emoji Frequency (unicode.org)
- Women's Olympic Weightlifting in the US: Part Two (physicalculturestudy.com)
- Sydney 2000: Tara Nott First Women's Gold (teamusa.org)
- 20 Years of Female Inclusion in Olympic Weightlifting (iwf.sport)
- Tia-Clair Toomey (wikipedia.org)
- Title IX and the Rise of Female Athletes (womenssportsfoundation.org)
- Female Bodybuilders on Instagram (sagepub.com)
- Love Lies Bleeding and Queer Feminist Bodybuilding (dazeddigital.com)
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