[2023-05-22] Flânerie
Yesterday, in his weekly email to me, my friend commented on my post about my visit to Almonte with my daughter. His response was both beautifully written and educational. As he has done many times before, on this occasion, he taught me a new idea:
What a nice post on Almonte! I didn’t know that "No one 'goes for a drive' anymore" but I have observed that people do not wander in the streets in big cities. I remember having that conversation with a Mexican friend many years ago about the dynamic in big cities where everyone seems to go to specific places. To my surprise, that friend who didn’t speak French knew the word flâneur and its meaning. A "flâneur" is someone who just takes the street for a walk, not to burn calories, to walk their dog, and to reach a daily number of steps. A flâneur is not a tourist either. This French term is also part of French culture, probably Parisian culture, where people would walk in the streets and stop to have a drink, chat with store keepers, or run into friends. Two weeks ago, I heard an interview about Paris where it seems that this culture has also disappeared for many reasons, including social media and mass tourism. We go out to meet friends only after a chat on social media.
By the way, the feminine equivalent "flâneuse" does not really exist. They would use "passante" probably because a woman is not supposed to flâner. There is that song by Georges Brassens "Les passantes". It is written from the point of view of the "flâneur" who crosses the "passantes" on the streets, collecting ephemeral moments of happiness, dreaming of conversations that never occurred, hands that he did not dare to touch or a kiss that he can only imagine.
I was fascinated by the concept of the flâneur and the notion that the term has traditionally been applied to men. I thought of women I know who engage in what I might call flânerie. One woman loves to meander, to step out her front door and to go for a walk that might last an hour or three, depending on whom she meets in her neighbourhood. And I thought of another woman who regularly goes out alone to traipse (as I call it) in various locales around the city.
Perhaps our visits to the dog park, sans chien, are a form of flânerie, since we never know whom we might run into. Today, for example, my daughter and I struck up a conversation with a man at Bruce Pit. I noticed that one of his two dogs had the name Frida or her dog vest. I couldn't see the name of the other dog, as he was some paces in front of me, but I wondered, aloud, whether its name was Diego. I surmised that Frida was named after Frida Kahlo, and so the other dog may have been named after her husband, Diego Rivera. The dogs' owner acknowledged that Frida was, indeed, named after Frida Kahlo, and noted that he had lived in Mexico for three years. Frida's littermate was named Roma, inspired by the fact that the dogs were of the Lagotto Romagnolo breed (Italian water dogs). In a beautiful French accent, the man told us that he had adopted them in Paris.
As I further contemplated the notion of flânerie, I wanted to know more. I came across an article called The Flaneur and the Flaneuse: the culture of women who wander cities. Author Gabby Tuzzeo asks the reader whether they've seen a flâneuse, whom she defines as "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." She adds:
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, [while] the unaccompanied female city walker was associated with prostitution, homelessness, catcalling and danger.
But Tuzzeo argues that women do, in fact, flâner, though in their own unique ways. She states:
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.
Tuzzeo suggests that "Women can wander with total anonymity and stay under the radar" but that "they also have the freedom to dress up and attract attention." The act of flânerie, therefore, allows for freedom of expression: "The freedom for a woman to choose who she wants to be when she steps out of her front door."
I recognize that not all women enjoy this freedom to be who they want to be when they step out their door. Politically motivated inequalities, cultural expectations, stigma, poverty, discrimination can all impede women's freedom of expression. But so too can the limitations we place on ourselves. Many women simply don't have the time to flâner and couldn't imagine taking the time to do so.
But like many ideals that we aspire to, perhaps we—regardless of gender—can find time to include a little flânerie in our lives: a few moments in our week when we can stroll, meander or stop to chat with a friend or stranger.
