Life — September 20, 1917 — page 17: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a single-panel cartoon satirizing social etiquette and romantic carelessness at what appears to be a formal party or dance. A well-dressed man admits to the hostess that he cannot remember his dance partner's name, then describes her only by physical peculiarities—"slightly knock-kneed and has a mole in the small of her back." The joke targets the shallow superficiality of the man's observation: he's noticed intimate physical details about a woman he's dancing with, yet remains oblivious to or indifferent about learning her actual identity. The cartoon critiques both masculine inattentiveness and the era's casual objectification of women at social events, where women might be reduced to physical descriptions rather than recognized as individuals worthy of being remembered by name.