Shania Twain Reflects On The Legacy Of 'Man! I Feel Like A Woman' For Its 25th Anniversary

The music video for Shania Twain’s iconic Man! I Feel Like A Woman single was released 25 years ago this week, and to commemorate the milestone anniversary, Twain revisited the music video as part of Vevo’s Footnotes series.

In Australia, Man! I Feel Like A Woman was Twain’s fifth consecutive top-five single, while it went to #1 and hit Platinum status in New Zealand – her highest-selling single in the country - #3 in the UK, #4 on the US Hot Country Chart, and peaked in the top five in Canada, France, Scotland, and made significant moves in other countries across the globe.

As an artistic statement, the music video notably reversed the gender roles in Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love and Simply Irresistible film clips, with Twain performing in front of a group of men all dressed and looking alike. It’s Twain’s most-viewed music video on YouTube, and in November 2022, it received the remastered HD treatment.

On Vevo Footnotes, Twain reflected on the themes of empowerment, self-confidence, and defying genre barriers in the song and music video.

“I was standing up for myself through the song,” she said in the video, which features annotated speech from Twain. “I wasn’t being apologetic for all the things I had been criticised for in my life: ‘You can’t do that, you can’t wear that, that’s too tight, that’s too short.’

“This was my song that really said, you know what I love about being a woman. I’m feeling comfortable in my own skin - that’s awesome.”

On the song’s soundscape, Twain added, “I wanted to go beyond country music, and this song was pushing my genre boundaries. Musically, it was not limited to one genre. It’s rock, it’s pop, it’s country.”

Despite her defiance, not everyone loved what she was doing with Man! I Feel Like A Woman. Twain said she and her team received “a lot of flak for doing what we did at that time. We were taking country music to a place it hadn’t been before, and some people didn’t like that.”

Naysayers also questioned the music video, which saw Twain flip Palmer’s idea on its head.

“I remember the art department saying, ‘This is way too sexy! The women listeners are not going to like this! They’re going to feel threatened,’” Twain recalled. “They told me I was going to alienate a huge part of my audience. I knew that women would totally get it.”

You can watch Twain’s Vevo Footnotes on Man! I Feel Like A Woman below.

Last year, Shania Twain released a super-deluxe reissue of Come On Over in honour of its 25th anniversary and life-changing impact on her career.

Come On Over is remembered for its most successful singles, including You’re Still The One, Man! I Feel Like A Woman, and That Don’t Impress Me Much and remains the best-selling album by a female solo artist of all time.