Phenomenal Woman
By Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
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.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
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.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
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.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
When I was a little girl, I wore flowery, lacey dresses like I was a chaste debutante. I was decked out in Laura Ashley and had the cutest bowl cut to cover my delicate head. My aunt would buy me clothes from the Limited where she worked and I dreamed of being a flower girl in family friends’ weddings. As a preschooler, I was already a budding ‘phenomenal woman,’ and I didn’t even know it.
When I was about 7, I went through a total change and became a ‘tomboy.’ I was barefoot all the time, wore huge genderless clothes as I ran around the woods and rivers, and told my dad that I wanted to be a boy. People called me ‘nature woman’ because I loved the outdoors and animals more than anything.
Though I’m sure I was pulled already by gender expectations, I wasn’t aware of these and I simply did the things that interested me—from playing with bugs to obsessing over the Ninja Turtle shows to running along-side the wolf cage at the zoo, I was connected to what I loved and didn’t care that the kids around me made fun of my strange bangs and shapeless, frog tee shirts.
As I aged, I began to feel the pull to act and look a certain way in order to fit in. The bullying comments of cruel middle schoolers started the wear on me, and I began to want the seemingly effortless life of the beautiful, blonde, straight A, soccer-playing-but-still-cute, mild mannered girls around me.
I changed my appearance and started to run around the track and limit my calories. During this time, I actually lost friends and felt more alone than I ever had in my life, even though I was doing what I felt was being asked of me as a young woman. My depression and anxiety increased, and I didn’t feel much of a pull to live.
Trying to conform to gender roles was incredibly painful for me, and it is for many of my clients and friends (trans, queer, male or female). We’re asked to perform roles by our society and in our relationships, and often these roles don’t fit the scope of who we are. Embracing my own identity and rejecting societal pressure has been a journey for me and it’s one that continues.
I could write a 100 page blog post about why societal gender expectations can be harmful and painful, so this blog post will be one in a series, and it will also be a simplification. However, these stick out for me as some of the main ways social expectations have harmed myself, my friends and my clients. I will elaborate on these more in my next blogs in this series on gender roles:
- We feel we can’t be ourselves and/or we don’t know who we really are. We feel disempowered and uncomfortable in our own skin.
- We beat our-selves up internally for a sub-par role performance and other people may also criticize us.
- We get pigeon holed and miss out on opportunities, money, resources (sometimes basic needs), and relationships.
- We experience pain in relationships as we try to conform to and break away from roles. We don’t feel like we can truly be who we are with others, but we yearn for authentic connection.
How do we reject gender role expectations and live into the truth of who we are? How do we connect with others romantically, sexually and in friendships in a way that’s genuine and authentic? Am I the lacey-dressed girl, the free wheelin’ tomboy-frog shirt girl, or a combination of both? Am I something else entirely? I invite you to comment on, disagree, agree, elaborate on any points that I make here—we all have different experiences and something to add to this discussion.
These questions are ones that I have grappled with for my entire life, and there’s no simple answer. I do know that as a 7 year old running alongside the wolf cage, I was a phenomenal being—and I wasn’t a woman or a man. I was also a phenomenal being when I wanted to get married to a doctor, bake in my easy bake oven and dress my paper dolls in elaborate gowns.
Re-discovering that ‘phenomenal’ core that each of us has inside ourselves is a complicated process and it’s one that continues throughout our lives because social pressure doesn’t stop with age. We never reach a point where we’re invincible or have discovered everything about ourselves. But we all have basic goodness and light inside of us. Therapy and inner work involve peeling back the protection that we’ve used to cover over our truth.
Angelou’s poem is strangely not about being a woman or being a man. It’s about being one’s self, unabashedly. None of us have to bow our heads or ‘shout or jump about or talk real loud.’ No one can destroy our inner mystery—but it is our job to peel away the layers that cover it over.
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Emma Kobil is a licensed professional counselor practicing in Denver, Colorado. Her philosophically informed therapeutic approach focuses on helping creative and perfectionist women practice self compassion. Learn more about Emma, or schedule an appointment, at mindfulcounselingdenver.com.
