Man I Feel Like A Woman Analysis

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Alexandra P. Garcia Ortiz
Professor Terra Joseph
CMP 120 ­ G1
17 November 2014
Man! I Feel Like A Woman
Up until the last few decades, women everywhere were expected to act a certain way in public and around others. There used to be a lot of rules of how a ‘lady’ was suppose to act, and it was expected of women everywhere to know these rules and to act accordingly. Nowadays, these rules are being challenged day by day. The expectations are still there from the generations before, but generation Z has already begun to breakout from this shell, and the women of today are more empowered than ever. Country singer Shania Twain is one of the voices of today that promotes the empowerment of women everywhere. Through her song Man! I Feel Like A
Who are we to condemn her for flaunting her sexuality if she wants to do so? Every woman in the world has a right to wear whatever she pleases and society should not judge them for wearing what they want. Girls everywhere have a right to wear what makes them comfortable, and if they want to wear something that makes them feel beautiful, we should support that notion rather than condemn it. After all, there’s no better way to empower women than making them feel confident enough to convey who they are through whatever means they desire. Although it is true that girls are taking advantage of social media to objectify themselves, it is not fair to say that all women do it for this purpose; because we have a right to post whatever we please on our social media even if not everyone agrees to it, and that’s the kind of notion
Twain is trying to implore in her song.
A lot of these notions about hiding one’s sexuality and repressing one’s natural desire comes from generation X. In Kincaid’s piece, she references a lot how the young girl was told she should present herself to avoid “becoming the slut I have warned you against becoming”
(385). The girl gets reprimanded numerous times for doing things that would attract
to feel the way I feel” would be her main focus in the song. After all, what better way to empower oneself than to vocalize one’s desires and expectations in a groovy country tune? This is also the lyric where I feel she makes her point the best, where I can piece together what she means to say by it and understand that she’s delivering the message that we are allowed to feel any way we do and that it doesn’t make us any less of a woman than we already were. By singing this line, we can assume Twain didn’t feel free to “get out of line”, “forget I’m a lady”, “color my hair, do what I dare” or “go totally crazy”. This song makes us understand that doing these sorts of things are not common around her, and that by doing these things she’s breaking a norm and yet she’s also being herself. I feel a lot of people

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will be able to relate to this because of all the strict gender norms placed upon them. Some examples for women would be things like sitting with their legs crossed, having long hair, and even watching what they eat. Are women not allowed to spread their legs, have short hair or