Woman: Red Hair Emoji

A woman with red hair. It represents redheaded women specifically, but more broadly it's become a symbol of redhead identity, representation, and the long fight to get gingers onto the emoji keyboard at all. This emoji exists because of a grassroots campaign: in 2015, Emma Kelly, founder of the Ginger Parrot blog, launched a Change.org petition after noticing that the new diverse emoji set included every hair color except red. The petition gathered over 20,000 signatures and was delivered to Apple HQ in Cupertino on a USB stick decorated as a "carrot for justice."

The result: Unicode spent over a year debating how to implement hair color, going back to the drawing board three or four times before settling on the ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) approach. The redhead emojis shipped in Unicode 11.0 in 2018. For the roughly 1-2% of the global population with natural red hair, it was the first time they could represent themselves in emoji.

On social media, 👩‍🦰 is used primarily as self-representation by women with red hair (natural or dyed). It appears in bios, display names, and captions to signal "this is me" or "redhead pride." The emoji also shows up in discussions about redhead stereotypes, sunscreen jokes, and the ongoing cultural conversation about ginger identity.

When the emojis first landed on phones in 2018, TIME covered the celebration as redheads worldwide posted their excitement. But the reception wasn't universally positive. Some redheads criticized the shade of red chosen by Apple, calling it "neon Chef Boyardee spaghetti-in-a-can color." Others pointed out that while they finally had a redhead person emoji, they still couldn't be a redhead doctor, teacher, or chef emoji, since the ZWJ hair modifiers didn't extend to profession emojis.

In the broader cultural conversation, 👩‍🦰 gets used whenever redhead topics trend: Ed Sheeran releases, natural hair color discussions, "Kick a Ginger Day" pushback, and the perpetual debate about whether redheads have fiery temperaments (they don't, but they do produce more adrenaline, so there's that).

Neutral. 👩‍🦰 is an identity/descriptor emoji, not a feeling emoji. It becomes flirty only when the context is flirty: "the 👩‍🦰 at the coffee shop was gorgeous" has romantic energy, but the emoji itself is just saying "woman with red hair." It's the surrounding text that carries the charge, not the emoji.

• •Used as self-description = neutral identity marker
• •Used to describe someone attractive = context-dependent
• •In a dating app bio = informational, not flirty
• •Paired with ❤️ or 🔥 = the pairing adds the romantic energy

The story of 👩‍🦰 begins in November 2014, when Apple released diverse skin tone emoji but left out redheads entirely. Emma Kelly, a London-based blogger who runs Ginger Parrot, noticed the omission and launched a Change.org petition. She fed quotes to media outlets, the BBC picked it up, and the petition snowballed to over 20,000 signatures. In July 2015, Kelly physically delivered the petition to Apple's Cupertino headquarters on a USB stick inside a case she called the "carrot for justice."

The Unicode Consortium took notice. In January 2017, emoji subcommittee vice-chair Jeremy Burge submitted proposal L2/17-011, summarizing options for adding redhead emoji. What followed was, as Popular Science documented in their oral history, "a winding, heated, and absurdly technical" debate. The core problem: how do you add hair color as a modifier without creating thousands of new codepoints? They went back to the drawing board three or four times.

The solution was the ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner) approach. Instead of creating separate characters for every redheaded person, Unicode defined a hair color component (🦰 U+1F9B0U+1F9B0) that gets joined to a person emoji via an invisible character. Woman (U+1F469U+1F469) + ZWJ (U+200DU+200D) + Red Hair (U+1F9B0U+1F9B0) = 👩‍🦰. This same system was used for curly hair (🦱), white hair (🦳), and bald (🦲).

The emojis shipped in Emoji 11.0 in June 2018. For a community representing less than 2% of the world's population, it was a small but meaningful victory in digital representation.

Approved in Unicode 11.0 (2018) as a ZWJ sequence: U+1F469U+1F469 (Woman) + U+200DU+200D (Zero Width Joiner) + U+1F9B0U+1F9B0 (Red Hair component). Added to Emoji 11.0 in 2018. The hair color components (red, curly, white, bald) were added simultaneously. Supports Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers. Proposal originated from L2/17-011 summarizing options for redhead representation.

1. 2014Apple releases diverse skin tone emoji; redheads left out entirely
2. 2015Emma Kelly (Ginger Parrot) launches Change.org petition; 20,000+ signatures; delivered to Apple HQ on a 'carrot for justice' USB stick↗
3. 2017Jeremy Burge submits proposal L2/17-011 to Unicode Consortium summarizing redhead emoji options↗
4. 2018Red hair emojis approved in Unicode 11.0 / Emoji 11.0 using ZWJ sequence approach. Ships on iOS 12.1, Android 9.0↗

Red hair concentration varies dramatically by geography. Scotland has ~13% and Ireland ~10% redheads, making them relatively common. In the US, it's about 2-6%. In most of Asia, Africa, and South America, natural red hair is extremely rare, so 👩‍🦰 may read as "dyed hair" or "cartoon character" rather than a natural trait.

The cultural meaning of red hair shifts by region too. In the UK and Ireland, "ginger" carries complex connotations: it can be affectionate (self-identification), neutral (descriptive), or derogatory (bullying). The 2009 "Kick a Ginger Day" incidents in Canadian schools (inspired by a South Park episode) showed how the stigma can turn physical. In France, red hair was historically associated with Judas ("Poil de Judas"), connecting it to betrayal and untrustworthiness.

In ancient Egypt, red hair had a different resonance entirely. Pharaoh Ramesses II was a redhead. The god Set, associated with chaos and storms, was depicted with red hair. During the medieval European witch hunts, red hair was treated as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, a belief that persisted for centuries.

• •The redhead emoji campaign started with a Change.org petition by Emma Kelly in 2015 that gathered 20,000+ signatures and was delivered to Apple HQ on a USB stick in a case called the "carrot for justice."
• •Natural red hair is caused by variants in the MC1R gene on chromosome 16. Only 1-2% of the world's population is naturally redheaded, but the trait is recessive, meaning many more people carry the gene without expressing it.
• •During the medieval European witch hunts, red hair was treated as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession. In France, redheads were called "Poil de Judas" (hair of Judas), connecting them to biblical betrayal.
• •Pharaoh Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) was a natural redhead. Ancient Egyptian attitudes toward red hair were complex: it was associated with the chaos god Set but also with royal power.
• •Popular Science published an oral history of the ginger emoji documenting the "winding, heated, and absurdly technical" debate at Unicode about how to implement hair color. They went back to the drawing board three or four times before settling on the ZWJ approach.

• •Some redheads were disappointed with the specific shade of red chosen by platforms. Apple's version was called 'neon Chef Boyardee spaghetti-in-a-can color' by critics. Natural red hair comes in dozens of shades from strawberry blonde to auburn to deep copper, and no single emoji shade represents them all.
• •The emoji only represents a person with red hair. It doesn't extend to redhead professions (doctor, teacher, chef). A redhead who's also a scientist can't show both identities in one emoji. This limitation frustrated the community after launch.

• •Ed Sheeran is the most visible natural redhead in global pop music. His unapologetically ginger image set him apart in an industry that favors polished aesthetics. He's embraced 👩‍🦰 (and 👨‍🦰) culture as part of his brand identity.
• •Lucille Ball became TV's most iconic redhead despite not being a natural one. She was originally brunette but dyed her hair for I Love Lucy. She proved that red hair was so culturally powerful that it was worth choosing, not just being born with.
• •The South Park episode "Ginger Kids" (2005) satirized anti-redhead prejudice but inadvertently inspired real-world "Kick a Ginger Day" incidents in 2009, where students at multiple Canadian schools assaulted redheaded classmates. The creators intended satire, but the impact was harassment.
• •Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris in Mad Men (2007-2015) became a modern redhead icon. Like Lucille Ball, she's not a natural redhead: she's been dyeing her hair since age 10, inspired by Ball herself.

• •ZWJ sequence: U+1F469U+1F469 U+200DU+200D U+1F9B0U+1F9B0. Falls back to 👩🦰 (two separate emojis) on unsupported devices.
• •Skin tone support: Insert modifier after woman codepoint: U+1F469 U+1F3FB U+200D U+1F9B0U+1F469 U+1F3FB U+200D U+1F9B0 = 👩🏻‍🦰 (light skin tone + red hair).
• •Shortcodes: :woman_red_hair::woman_red_hair: or :red_haired_woman::red_haired_woman: depending on platform.
• •The red hair component emoji U+1F9B0U+1F9B0 🦰 can also stand alone but is rarely used solo. It's primarily a modifier.
• •Hair color ZWJ sequences were introduced in Emoji 11.0 (2018). Available on iOS 12.1+, Android 9.0+, Samsung One UI 1.0+.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.