ABSTRACT
The fan has found its way into medical and paramedical advice on how to deal with menopause symptoms as an alternative to hormone therapy. The contribution starts from an Internet-based diagnosis of the present association of the fan with menopause, then goes back to different periods of cultural history—with a focus on France where not only its fabrication but also its handling and symbolic encoding found their origin in Europe. The fan acquired different symbolic functions linked to gender, starting with its use as a luxury product by royals of both sexes in the early modern period. In European court culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the now exclusively feminine use of the fan was linked to a “language” of gallantry and love. In the Belle Époque, the fan was rediscovered as a prestigious fashion and art object and as a cheap means of advertisement. This advertising function was used by French feminists in 1914 to fight for women’s vote, thus combining a feminine tradition of decency with the political combat for a masculine privilege. Finally, the fan underwent a semiotic recoding in drag subculture where it is used to deliberately blur the boundaries between the sexes.
