The speaker of “Phenomenal Woman” is a spirited woman who, with a breezy confidence, proudly defies her society’s conventional notions of what makes women attractive. In the poem’s opening stanza, the speaker implies that she doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of a woman propped up by contemporary society. Contrasting with the “pretty women” she mentions in line 1, the speaker says she isn’t “cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size” (line 2). The speaker indicates here that, though she may not be skinny like the typical fashion model, she has a way of embodying her femininity that has to do with behavior more than mere looks. When the “pretty women” express bafflement at the speaker’s unconventional allure, she responds that the secret of her mystique lies in her comportment:

     I say,
     It’s in the reach of my arms,
     The span of my hips,
     The stride of my step, 
     The curl of my lips.

Immediately following these lines (lines 5–9), the speaker makes a decisive claim that she will repeat three more times in the poem: “I’m a woman / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman, / That’s me” (lines 10–13). The speaker takes on a more defiant tone with these lines, asserting that, against societal convention, she is the very picture of womanhood. The confidence of her assertion marks her as a proud feminist.

Take a Study Break