This Week In Sexist History:

Good Ol’ Day: August 20, 1883

Dateline: Long Branch, NJ

1. Women must be pretty.

2. But they are born ugly, so we must make them pretty.

3. Women who go to the beach make this task very difficult for us.

4. And women who actually swim are nearly beyond help.

5. It is rather amusing, however, just how ugly swimming makes women!

6. Women who swim are so ugly, they don't even want men to look at their ugly bodies! But we do look at them, and then detail their hideousness in the pages of the New York Times.

7. Well, at least they are still wealthy.

8. Though these ugly, oceanic women allow no one to see how profoundly uncomfortable they are, I know they are profoundly uncomfortable, because I understand women. Even the ugly ones.

9. If a woman is not pretty, then she does not enjoy herself. As is proper.

10. But perhaps the water will help to cure her extreme ugliness anyhow.

11. And remember, even Butterfaces could be hiding a sensual ankle in the surf.

12. [Obligatory rhapsodic account of historical beach leering].

13. [Obligatory rhapsodic account of modern beach leering].

14. Foreign women! They are kind of hot, but so ignorant of the customs of our modern American beach leering!

15. This one hot foreign actress wore the ugliest swimsuit one time.

16. She was a shitty actress, too.

17. Yes, I am using the term "dudes." In 1883.

18. Girls can't swim!

19. Well, at least they display their pearly white arms when they're trying. Oh, did I mention that I am also a racist?

20. One reason for women to swim, of course, is to wear an outfit which mimics an animal's yoke, in order to infer that she would make a good, obedient wife.

21. Have I not sufficiently compared women to animals? Women women zebras.

22. Now I am leering at children.

23. Aaaaand back to the racism.

24. Old women are disgusting and must be kept indoors.

25. I like watching girls fall down.

26. Middle-aged women are the most heinous, for they insist upon swimming, though their bodies are universally reviled.

27. Have I mentioned swimming is for men?

Do you have "ideas and plans and goals"? Have you "so much to offer the world"? Are you a pretty lady (pictured)? Enter the 2009 Miss District of Columbia competition!

Interested women, ages 17 to 24, must complete an application by April 6 to be considered in this year's contest. Then, they must attend auditions on April 18, where they will be judged on "a 90-second talent and a 4-minute interview" as well as the proportions of their bodies ("health").  Finalists will go on to compete for the title in a July 11 pageant at the Lincoln Theatre. The one crowned Miss D.C. will have the honor of joining 51 other pretty ladies "who will vie for the title of Miss America in Las Vegas," and possibly also have her personality defects aired on national television in a reality show tie-in.

According to the Miss D.C. Organization, "Whether you want to become a doctor or a dancer, an accountant or an architect, the Miss District of Columbia Organization has an opportunity that will help bring you closer to achieving your goals," as long as you are smokin'. Winner gets money.

Photo by MissChatter