The Flaneur and the Flaneuse: the culture of women who wander cities
By Gabby Tuzzeo
When you next visit a new city, take a look around you. Can you observe the Flanuese? The lone female walker, the woman exploring the city at leisure, the woman sitting alone at a café drinking coffee, the woman relaxing in a park, observing her surroundings.
Historically, to freely wander a city at leisure was a privilege afforded to men who had the time and money to explore the cities they dwelled in, observing and creating. They were flaneurs. Think Charles Dickens and Charles Baudelaire, men who created their work through observing the cities they lived and breathed.
The notion of flânerie has long been associated as masculine, with the unaccompanied female city walker was associated with prostitution, homelessness, catcalling and danger.
Griselda Pollock said, “There is no female equivalent of the quintessential masculine figure, the flaneur.” Deborah Parsons said, “the urban observer has been regarded as an exclusively male figure. The opportunities and activities of flânerie were predominantly the activities of the man of means.”
But what about women who wander cities? What happens when women have the same leisure, privilege and money to engage in flânerie?
It is too short sighted to assume women experience and interact with the city in a directly comparable way to a man, or the flaneur. We can’t examine them as a female flaneur, but as Flaneuse.
PASSEGGIARE
Flaneuse is the flaneur re-imagined. She is not a female flaneur but an entirely separate concept. The Flaneuse acknowledges that women experience and explore cities in a completely independent and unique way. A way that merits its own title and field of study.
The culture and importance given to walking is not an outdated concept. Many Italians take daily Passeggiatas between 5pm and 8pm to absorb their surroundings, vibe off their city and engage in light exercise. The name originates from the verb passeggiare, meaning ‘to walk.’
La Passeggiata is a cultural phenomenon where Italians socialise with people after work. They greet their friends and acquaintances; they chat to the locals and they gossip. Women frequently hold hands and walk together. Giovanna Delnegro states this Italian custom “reinforces a sense of belonging.” Peroni have recently used la Passeggiata as their new drink slogan.
La Passeggiata is also an occasion to dress up. Historically, the custom was an opportunity to display the charms of young women eligible for marriage. Parents of young girls would encourage their daughters to dress well for their passeggiattas or “fare una bella figura” and flirt with eligible men. The goal was to see and be seen, and this attitude has not altered much in modern day Italy, with Italians still taking great pride in their appearance and image.
Women and art
But what is the impact of female city walkers on art, culture and creativity? British poet Amy Levy rightly said, “there have always been women writing about cities, chronicling their lives, telling stories, taking pictures, making films, engaging with the city any way they can.”
The rise of the department store in the 19th century gave women the freedom to ‘wander.’ They could flit around the city, engage in afternoons of leisure and pleasure, socialise and sit in cafes for lunch. Department stores became free spaces women could enjoy an afternoon in town without a gentleman needing to accompany them.
Fast forward to the 20th century and women were enjoying new and even greater freedoms. They rode bicycles to work and experienced the commute. They had lunch breaks together, and they smoked outside. They were finding new ways to experience the city as women.
Walking through a sea of men
Ruth Orkin’s famous American Girl in Italy photograph, taken in 1951 is the embodiment of the Flaneuse.
In 1951, Ninalee Jinx Allen Craig (the American girl) quit her job in New York to travel Europe alone, something rarely done by a woman at the time. She met an American called Ruth Orkin in Florence, also travelling alone. As an aspiring photojournalist, Orkin teamed up with Jinx to photo document their experiences as solo female travellers. Her most iconic photo shows Jinx walking alone through a group of 15 men in Italy, a photo which has become synonymous with female harassment.
Ruth Orkin, American Girl in Italy, 1951
Jinx, now 85, maintains, “It’s not a symbol of harassment. It’s a symbol of a woman having an absolutely wonderful time! I clutched my shawl to me because that sheaths the body. It was my protection, my shield. I was walking through a sea of men. I was enjoying every minute of it.”
“Some people want to use it as a symbol of harassment of women, but that’s what we’ve been fighting all these years.”
Supposedly, after the photograph was taken, Jinx took a ride on the back of the scooter belonging to the man in the photograph. Arguably the photograph speaks more to the empowerment of the lone female city walker and her freedom and travel spirit, than it does about the men surrounding her.
Virginia Woolf is another example of a woman who often used the streets as inspiration for her work. She wanted to represent “life itself” on her pages. Similarly, French artist Sophie Calle wrote Suite Venitienne based on a man she picked at random from a crowded city. She followed him all the way to Venice while wearing a blonde wig so as not to be recognised, and compiled notes.
Going somewhere or coming from somewhere
In her book Flâneuse, Lauren Elkin uses herself as her central character, having lived and explored several cities throughout her life including Paris, Tokyo and Venice. She explores the idea of a female urban walker, using her own wanderings in Paris as her starting point. Through walking, she tells us, she encountered the “total freedom unleashed from the act of putting one foot in front of the other.”
Women can wander with total anonymity and stay under the radar, like Sophie Calle, however, in a similar way to the Passeggiatta they also have the freedom to dress up and attract attention. Flanuese in this sense is a freedom of expression. The freedom for a woman to choose who she wants to be when she steps out of her front door.
Lauren Elkin said “once I began to look for the Flaneuse, I spotted her everywhere. I caught her standing on street corners in New York and coming through doorways at Kyoto, sipping coffee at café tables in Paris, or at the foot of a bridge in Venice, or riding the ferry in Hong Kong. She is going somewhere or coming from somewhere. I found the Flaneuse using the city as “performance spaces, or as hiding places.”
Historians have removed the idea of women as flaneurs for years, deeming their experience of city walking to be limited. Perhaps it was never limited, just different. It is not directly comparable to how a man perceives a city, and perhaps not even compatible. Flaneuse are due credit, historically and presently as an independent and inspirational force in their own right.
Gabby Tuzzeo is a freelance writer based in London who specialises in articles that celebrate women. You’ll often find her on the hunt for cake and coffee shops, typing away behind a laptop, or with her nose buried in a book.
Read more of Gabby’s work here.