Decades before the world decided that beauty pageants were “scholarship competitions” that also feature a swimsuit portion (for scholarship reasons), there was a glorious time in American culture when humans felt absolutely no need to pretend that contests of beauty were anything more than putting women on display like cuts of meat. Case in point? The “best ankles” competitions of the 1930s-1950s.
Mashable reports that while the dainty ankle has fallen out of favor as an acceptable way to judge a person’s beauty and worth, it used to be an important component of how we evaluated beauty. Many contests looking for the prettiest legs and ankles stood on their own—often for hosiery companies— but others were part of larger competitions in which men stared at women and decided which was the best based only on whose ankles, shoulders, and/or arms were the comeliest.