I laughed when I saw the ridiculous news that nearly one-third of Americans think Santa Claus should be gender-neutral or a woman. I found it equally funny when I read campus stories like how the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill deemed the phrase “you guys” a microaggression against women, and that some progressives actually think white women who dare wear hoop earrings are racists.
As it turns out, instead of laughing, I should have been deeply concerned.
Europe’s mistakes show that America must reject the resurgence of political correctness — or we too will be sent racing toward censorship in the pursuit of progressivism.
Political correctness run amok is leading to the slow collapse of liberal society in the United Kingdom. Recently, news broke that the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority is preventing companies from running advertisements that involve potentially offensive gender stereotypes “amid fears that such depictions are contributing to pay inequality and causing psychological harm.” This broad form of heavy-handed censorship will surely ban content that isn’t actually offensive. But even when it just prohibits stereotyping, it’s still an obvious sign that the U.K. is inching ever closer toward an Orwellian system of thought-policing.
The ASA’s new rules will punish ads we currently consider commonplace. According to The Guardian, it will now be impermissible to run an advertisement that shows a woman struggling to park a car, or a woman cooking dinner while her husband refuses to do chores. Even worse, in the war against “sexism” and “body-shaming,” the new rules ban any ads that dare to suggest that transforming your body could increase your chances of romantic success. For instance, a now-infamous weight loss product ad showing images of an attractive, tan woman in a bathing suit and asking “Are You Beach Body Ready?” prompted an outcry.
Liberal feminists will get their wish: It will now be punishable to offend the sensibilities of the politically correct British elite. This is a sad day for liberal society.
The U.K.’s censorship campaign will, in many cases, make it punishable to depict the truth. Reality isn’t always politically correct: There are actually many families where women do cook dinner and men are lazy about their housework. Advertisers have every right to market to everyday folks whose families have not yet morphed to reflect the shifting tides of political correctness. And by barring any ad that suggests dating success requires physical transformation, bureaucrats are basically banning advertisements that cater to the reality of modern dating. Burying your head in the sand is not a solution to a perceived social ill.
Even when ads are offensive — so what? The moment we accept perceived offense as a standard for limiting free expression, any hope for serious political debate or a functioning democracy collapses. But that’s exactly what the ASA’s new policy does, as it reads: “[Advertisements] must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence.”
Under the new rules, people can literally report adverts they find offensive to the authorities, creating a modern-day Thought Police in Britain. Even if someone isn’t offended, a business competitor might report an ad as offensive just to get it taken down.
It’s clear how catastrophic such a standard could be for free speech. If offense is the new bar, what’s to stop the next ban from barring depictions of gender altogether? After all, many progressives believe gender is purely a social construct, untethered from biology, and that gender norms are a form of oppression. For some, any gender-based ads might be offensive — so it’s clear that accommodating offense is extremely problematic.
It’s also an assault on the very conceptualization of comedy — something advertising often depends on for success. If you’re not free to offend, you’re not free to be funny. Good comedy must challenge its audience and push them out of their comfort zone. Many popular adverts over the years have succeeded because of their humor, but this could become next to impossible in a society that conforms to the contours of political correctness so deeply that it punishes offense. It’s the approach the U.K. is taking: Ella Smillie of the ASA said that, “The use of humour or banter is unlikely to mitigate against the potential for harm.”
This is a fundamentally paternalistic and condescending worldview. To believe that gender-biased words or even adverts can cause “psychological harm” is to suggest that women are so infantile and incapable of independence that they must be shielded from offense to the point of banning mere comedy. It’s an exercise in elitism: The masses are apparently so stupid and gullible that the wise folks in government must shelter them from words too controversial for hearing.
Americans must take this as a warning. If we continue to allow political correctness to run roughshod over our culture, the U.K.’s dystopian fate could be our future.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is an assistant editor at Young Voices. You can find him on Twitter.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the Washington Examiner erroneously referred to the ads as being “illegal.” The ads are instead punishable. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
