UK Outlaws Gender Stereotypes in Advertisements
21st June 2019
This is what happens in a country without a Bill of Rights. When the American Constitution was being hammered out, the rights enshrined in it were those considered to be the traditional rights and freedoms of British subjects, reduced to writing just in case public opinion (or government policy) changed in the future. I think recent history has underscored the wisdom of that approach.
Unfortunately, since class warfare became fashionable in the early 20th century, and socialism soon after, Britain has advanced quite a ways toward political totalitarianism, facilitated by the settled legal doctrine that Parliament can do whatever it damned well pleases and individual British citizens have no rights or freedoms to speak of (and certainly not to sue for).
So what is this ‘Advertising Standards Authority’? Well, Wikipedia says:
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry in the United Kingdom. The ASA is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation. However, its code of advertising practice[1] broadly reflects legislation in many instances. The ASA is not funded by the British government, but by a levy on the advertising industry.
This body is not a public authority and has no legal power (and no accountability to the public) but appears to have been set up by the advertising industry itself in order to avoid regulation by an actual political authority. “Not long after the inception of the ASA the Molony Committee considered but rejected proposals to introduce a system to regulate the advertising industry by statute. The Committee reported that it was satisfied that the industry could be regulated effectively from within by the ASA.” I’ll just bet it was.