For those of us who feel reasonably confident that woman are capable of swimming, cycling or working for the police, the gender bias in our emoji keyboard has long been a source of frustration. Why is it only men who can go for a swim in emoji-land? Why do women have the option of being princesses, but not policemen or paramedics? And who on earth are the dancing bunny girls?

Earlier this year, Google approached Unicode, the company that creates emojis, and asked them to design more gender-balanced options. Now, Apple has announced that the raft of new emojis will officially launch with its new software this autumn.

Single parents, female athletes, and no more guns: Apple confirms release date for new emojis