In the early 19th century, in a Paris on the verge of having its medieval fabric torn open by Haussmann's grand boulevards, novelist George Sand dressed as a man to walk the streets. According to her journals, "in trousers and boots I could fly from one end of the city to the other, regardless of the weather, the hour, or the place." No one paid her any attention, no one guessed her disguise, and no one stared or criticized; she was just another "atom lost in that immense crowd." Thanks to her male attire, Sand experienced fearless incursions and solitary wanderings like a true flâneur—experiences that would later become fundamental to crafting her successful narratives.
By definition, the flâneur—as Walter Benjamin described based on the work of Charles Baudelaire—is a wandering and observing character typical of 19th-century European literature. This anonymous figure, who wandered slowly and idly through the streets of Paris, was conceived from its inception as exclusively male, since women lacked the freedom men had to roam cities, confined as they were to the domestic sphere. Furthermore, by all accounts, achieving the status of flâneur required more than just being "authorized" to wander the city; it also demanded certain privileges, such as the leisure time to do so without responsibilities to hinder one's aimless roaming.
