What It Feels Like for a Girl double standard toward women, addressing hurtful myths about female inferiority. To emphasize the message, the song opens with a spoken word sample by actress Charlotte Gainsbourg from the 1993 British film, "The Cement Garden". A Spanish version of the track, "Lo Que Siente la Mujer", was translated by Alberto Ferraras and included the Latin American edition of "Music". The song received acclaim from most music critics, who declared it as a highlight from the album, while also remarking it as one of the most mature musical ventures of Madonna's career. Commercially, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" reached the
What It Feels Like for a Girl atmosphere and ambiguous air". Also from "The Guardian", Maddy Costa thought that the track was "exquisite", adding "on 'What It Feels Like for a Girl' you feel is the Madonna of old, talking about being a pop bitch and making you tingle even with its hackneyed lyrics". Writing for "Billboard", Larry Flick hailed it "a hook-laden midtempo jam [...] that should give the Britney/Christina generation of teenage female listeners a little food for thought", highlighting its "motherly, nurturing perspective". Also from "Billboard", Chuck Taylor named it "one of the more substantive – and mature – musical ventures of [Madonna's] career",