Imagining the flâneur as a woman

Abstract

Flânerie as an activity of strolling and looking carried out by the flâneur is a persistent motif in literature, sociology and art concerned with urban and specifically metropolitan culture. During the 19th century the flâneur was conceptualised as exclusively male, since women were not able to walk around the city with the same freedom as men. Women were firmly entrenched in the domestic sphere and it was only lower-and working-class women who entered the masculine public sphere on a regular basis (Wolff 1990, 35). Therefore, the experience of the city stroller of the modernist era was mainly attributed to the male and the idea of the female flâneur was inconceivable. In this article the flâneur is imagined as a woman – a radical shift from the 19th-century conception of the flâneur who merely consorted with prostitutes and shop girls, never seeing them as equals or as having a rightful ‘place’ in the public arena of the city. The concept of the flâneuse is investigated to ascertain the possibility of her existence and presence in the city. The article thus questions the gender of the flâneur and suggests that the flâneuse does not have the same freedom to stroll the streets as her male counterpart as a result of the intricate connection women have with consumerism, specifically by being an object as well as a subject of consumerism. On this account women's position in consumer society is explored from the position of the prostitute and being the object of male gaze and desire. Reference is made to selected artworks by the South African artists Tracy Payne, Celia de Villiers and Dineo Bopape to elucidate theoretical concepts brought forward in the article.