Or is it something only women do?
In today’s office environment it’s an essential interpersonal skill. Keep in mind moderation is key…one or two emoticons per email is sufficient. Any more would come across as insincere. The only exception is external client emails since you want to be sure the client can relate on an emotional level.
There are other ways to differentiate yourself or emphasize key items. Different color fonts and highlighting can be equally powerful tools. Lastly, a well chosen gif can be the icing on the cake an email needs.
We’re lucky to have bchad as a resource for these types of formatting guidelines - he’s very responsive and you should feel free to send him a private message with any further questions. 
Happy sexist Thursday to you too!
No, I’ve never seen emoticons being used by either gender.
^if a guy includes it in his email it creeps me out. if a chick does it, it’s ok once or twice but anything more than that gets annoying.
I’ll take an emoticon within a grammatically correct email vs a misuse of one of the ‘there/their/theyre’ any day of the week
side: it’s almost always a chick that initiates the emoticon exchange. not sexist. just facts
“Almost always” sounds like a great start to a factually based statement.
No, but I have seen women in my company’s marketing department use them. I’ve also seen men in the marketing department use ALL CAPS, bold , italics, BOLDED ALL CAPS , and a lot of !!! in emails marked as high priority. I’ve never marked an email as high priority, except maybe a couple of times as a joke to the marketing guy who marks 95% of his emails as high priority.
It’s not sexist if it’s true. Yes I have received emails from women with emojis in their emails, never a man. I remember my boss (who is a woman) one time commented “you get a lot of emails with smiley faces”.
I never send one unless I know this person extremely well (50+ emails). And it is usually a woman who has sent me an email with an emoji first.
I only use them to add a human element to threatening or confrontational emails. For instance:
“Please immediately submit the required additional capital, as described below, or we will be forced to initiate the process of forfeiting your assets 
.”
Or (to new analysts before leaving the office for the evening):
“This is a reminder to complete your edits to the 85 page prospectus by tomorrow morning. Please ensure that there are no mistakes, in the interests of your future at this company 
.”
Some emails are informal and emoticons are ok ( e.g. “Awesome! A raise! :-D”)
Other than that, I only include emoticons to make sure that any joke or sarcastic comment is clearly indicated as sarcastic.
Most official communication is too formal for either of these cases, and so no emoticons.
Dear Sir 
:
It was great to observe your financial operations, clearly, you can benefit from my experience at figuring out WTF you are doing, since, clearly, you have no idea…
I use them all the time if its people I communicate with regularly. 
This is more common in Asia, yes official emails from HR with fun emoticons, and even more popular with Asia women. Westerners are less emoticon competent, have some disdain for emotions in general, especially in business.
only to people you know well and equal or subordinate women to clarify the meaning of your words as non-offensive