Phenomenal Woman: Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Liberation of Self-Acceptance

Throughout the poem, the speaker presents herself with an evident sense of pride, confidence, and self-worth. Those around her wonder where her confidence comes from, particularly considering that she doesn’t fit the conventional profile for female attractiveness. The speaker herself acknowledges that she isn’t conventionally pretty: “I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size” (line 2). Even so, she understands that physical beauty isn’t the only—or even the primary—source of attractiveness. More important than a person’s physical form alone is how a person inhabits their form. By liberating herself from socially imposed perspectives on female beauty, the speaker feels less constrained and more playful in how she carries herself. As she unleashes herself and allows herself to fully embody her femininity, she notices the positive attention she gets from men and women alike. This attention creates a feedback loop that she finds deeply empowering. Not only does it feel empowering to her personally, but she also hopes to empower others. In the final stanza, she says:

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.

In other words (lines 46–51), the speaker’s self-acceptance endows her with a self-confidence that she wants to make accessible to others as well.

The Power of Female Sexuality

The speaker of “Phenomenal Woman” exudes sexual energy in a way that proves equally mysterious and powerful. She references this sexual energy most clearly in the poem’s second stanza, where she describes how men can’t resist her:

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.

In this passage (lines 14–20), the speaker likens men to a swarm of bees, buzzing around her as if she were the queen of a honey hive. The metaphor of the honey hive has a strongly sexual connotation. Indeed, honey often appears as a symbol for female sexuality, and particularly for female genitalia. In this case, then, the male bees swarm around their queen in a frenzy of irrepressible sexual energy. The speaker references this sexual energy elsewhere in the poem, albeit more subtly. Specifically, the speaker locates the source of her sexual allure in the way she embodies her femininity. It lies in “the span of [her] hips” (line 7) and “the curl of [her] lips” (line 9), she says in stanza 1. Later, she locates the source in “the arch of [her] back” (line 38) and “the ride of [her] breasts” (line 40). Through all these examples, the speaker makes a case for the power of her sexuality.

The Difference Between Prettiness and Beauty

In the opening lines of “Phenomenal Woman,” the speaker draws a broad distinction between shallowly conventional ideas of prettiness and a more deeply substantive notion of beauty. The speaker makes this distinction implicitly when she says, in the first line, “Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.” With these words, the speaker excludes herself from the category of “pretty women,” and she confirms this conclusion in the following line: “I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size.” These lines set up an opposition between conventional prettiness and some other form of attractiveness, which has a “secret” source. Conventional prettiness is defined solely by physical appearance. It’s precisely because the speaker isn’t skinny like a fashion model that the “pretty women” feel baffled by her evident allure. In contrast to the shallow convention of prettiness, the speaker emphasizes the way she carries herself. She embodies her femininity in a uniquely animated way that draws the attention of men and women alike. It is this deeper source of attractiveness that the speaker celebrates throughout the poem. Though she uses the word “phenomenal” to describe her embodiment of femininity, we could also refer to it as an authentic form of beauty that stands in contrast to shallow ideas of prettiness.