Composition
For the single version, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" is a trance-inspired song, while the album version is a mid-tempo pop and trip-hop song. For the album version, according to Musicnotes.com, which was published by Alfred Publishing Co., Inc, the song is set in the key Eb major. Additionally, Madonna's vocals span from G3 to Bb4 notes.
Lyrically, the song describes the pressure women feel to conform to social norms of politeness and subservience. The beginning of the song opens with the following dialogue from the 1994 British film, The Cement Garden, directed by Andrew Birkin starring his niece, Charlotte Gainsbourg:
"Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots. 'Cause it's OK to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading. 'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading. But secretly you'd love to know what it's like... Wouldn't you? What it feels like for a girl."
The Village Voice's Phil Dellio found the song the "answer song" to The Virgin Suicides, saying " the perfect answer record to The Virgin Suicides (where boys indeed stand on the side of the street looking uncomprehendingly on girls), thanks in no small part to the gossamer-like synthesizer percolating in the background (Air bubbles?). Jose F. Promis from Allmusic described it as a "semi-ballad". But praised the remix off the song calling it a "massive, deep arena club stomper."
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