20 pages • 40 minutes read
Phenomenal Woman
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Background
Historical Context: The Black Is Beautiful Movement
As a personal friend and professional collaborator of 1960s political and cultural leaders like Malcolm X, religious leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and novelists like James Baldwin, Angelou, too, was concerned with the position of Black people within American society. Angelou was involved with the US civil rights movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s, fighting against racial discrimination while advocating for nonviolent resistance. Like many other Black artists and scholars of the time, she also spent time in Africa and worked to trace her genetic and cultural roots.
Angelou was also interested in fighting for the rights of Black women in particular. In the 1960s and 1970s, Black women were often excluded from Eurocentric ideas of beauty, portrayed as aesthetically inferior for not having light skin and straight hair. The Black is Beautiful movement—an extension of the larger civil rights movement—aimed to reframe aesthetic ideals, allowing Black women to embrace their appearance.
“Phenomenal Woman” reflects this effort. The speaker notes the “span of my hips,” the “curl of my lips,” and the “bend of her hair” (Lines 7, 9, 54)—all descriptors that reference facial and bodily phenotypes associated with Black women. The emphasis is on the idea that these features are alluring and attractive, rather than something to be hidden or disavowed. This focus on Black female beauty was important to younger women like former First Lady Michelle Obama, who noted, “As a child, my first doll was Malibu Barbie. […] That was the standard for perfection. That was what the world told me to aspire to. But then I discovered Maya Angelou” (Obama, Michelle. “Remarks by the First Lady at Memorial Service for Dr. Maya Angelou.” June 7, 2014, Wait Chapel at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina). Obama notes that Angelou reminds “us that we must each find our own voice, decide our own value, and then announce it to the world with all the pride and joy that is our birthright as members of the human race” (Obama). Angelou’s belief in the dignity and rights of the Black people is considered part of her legacy.
Cultural Context: Fashion in the 1960s and 1970s
One of the key things that Angelou’s speaker notes about herself is that she isn’t “built to suit a fashion model’s size” (Line 2). As the poem was published in 1978, but may have been written earlier, we can assume that Angelou’s speaker is referring to fashion that existed post 1960. The New Look, developed by French clothing designer Christian Dior in the 1950s, emphasized an hourglass figure. Tighter bodices and very full skirts, as worn by actress Grace Kelly, showed off trim waists.
However, an extreme aesthetic shift occurred in the 1960s, as popular culture embraced the “mod” look—fashion that gravitated toward less prim, more casual, prep-influenced attire, which for women included capri pants, turtlenecks, and flats; younger women began to wear very short and colorful swing dresses, mini-skirts, and go-go boots. Moreover, the female body ideal dramatically changed as the fuller figures of the 1950s gave way to very slender frames. The top model of the period was Lesley Lawson, better known as Twiggy. Twiggy was tiny, small-breasted, had a blonde pixie haircut, and round, large blue eyes, which were played up with false eyelashes to make her look doll-like. Twiggy’s waif-like physique was admired and emulated, as thinness and androgyny became aesthetic aspirations. Some women resorted to starvation, fad diets, and/or drugs to achieve the desired look.
In response, the counter-culture movement of the 1970s helped to expand ideas of beauty, becoming more inclusive and natural. Body types associated with non-white racial backgrounds began to be embraced, although most high fashion models remained very thin—an aesthetic that was difficult to achieve and may have increased self-loathing in women. Angelou addresses this creatively, showing how the speaker of “Phenomenal Woman” appreciates her curvy body, rejecting the pressure to be “cute” (Line 2).
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