Performed by Reddy, the first recording of "I Am Woman" appeared on her debut album I Don't Know How to Love Him, released in May 1971, and was heard during the closing credits for the 1972 film Stand Up and Be Counted.

A new recording of the song was released as a single in May 1972 and became a number-one hit later that year, eventually selling over one million copies.

The song came near the apex of the counterculture era[1] and, by celebrating female empowerment, became an enduring feminist anthem for the women's liberation movement.

Nestled among the Leon Russell, Graham Nash and Van Morrison songs were two Reddy and Ray Burton originals.

"[citation needed] The next day she wrote the lyric and handed it to Australian guitarist Ray Burton to put it to music.

He told Sunday Magazine that he spoke to Reddy after she hosted a series of regular women's meetings at which he says they would "sit around and whine about their boyfriends".

She gave me lyrics scribbled down on a piece of paper and I went home that Sunday night and wrote the whole song in about three hours.

"[5] But more than a year later, the song was picked to run behind the opening credits of Stand Up and Be Counted, a lightweight Hollywood women's lib comedy starring Jacqueline Bisset, Loretta Swit and Steve Lawrence.

"[6] In its initial form, the original version ran to little more than two minutes, so Reddy was asked to write an additional verse and chorus.

[citation needed] Immediately after that, guitarist Deasy played the riff on his 12-string electric guitar that became the signature sound for the song.

[8] The new recording of the song was released as a single on the 22nd of the month,[9] and Wald – who had worked the phones for 18 hours a day urging radio stations to play "I Don't Know How to Love Him" – again put his promotional skills to use.

He lined up gigs for Reddy – by now heavily pregnant with son Jordan – to sing on 19 TV talk and variety shows, and "women began calling radio stations and requesting the song, thereby forcing airplay.

"[10] Despite the chord it was striking with television viewers, the song's trek to the top of the charts was still a long, hard climb.

[14] Upon the release of the single, Record World called it a "typically sensitive, professional performance from the fine Australian songstress.

"[15] "I Am Woman" was the first number one single for Capitol Records since "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry five years earlier, in 1967.

[16] It was the first number one hit on the Billboard chart by an Australian-born artist and the first Australian-penned song to win a Grammy Award (in her acceptance speech for Best Female Performance, Reddy thanked "God, because She makes everything possible").

[citation needed] It also became the second Helen Reddy hit – after "I Don't Know How to Love Him" – to peak at number two in her native Australia.

[citation needed] In the year that Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine was launched in the US and Cleo in Australia, the song quickly captured the imagination of the burgeoning woman's movement.

This was particularly true after the 1973 U.S. Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision was bookended by Paul Anka's 1974 number-one hit, "Having My Baby."

In her tell-all Hollywood book, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, Julia Phillips claimed that by the time the couple completed their acrimonious divorce in 1982 they had blown most of the $40 million they had made.

[18] When Reddy's performance of the song at the 1981 Miss World contest infuriated feminists, she responded: "Let them step forward and pay my rent and I'll stay home.

In a 1975 episode of The Carol Burnett Show, guest Jean Stapleton played a feminist who proudly announces, "I am woman!"

"[25] During the 2000 Republican presidential campaign of Elizabeth Dole one GOP consultant complained that, "she has to have a message beyond 'I am woman, hear me roar.

'"[26] A biopic of Reddy's life, titled after the song, was announced in mid-2016 with Unjoo Moon as director, and finally saw release in 2020.

[28][29] They were introduced by former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard,[29] and were backed by a virtual choir of more than twenty female singers.

Reddy's description of the "typical DJ reaction" to the song is quoted in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits: 'I can't stand this record!

"[31] In 2006, Burger King released an ad campaign titled "Manthem" featuring "I Am Man", a parody of Helen Reddy's song, to promote its Texas Double Whopper hamburger.