The song broke the record for the highest jump to number one at a time which was later broken by Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" in 2009.

It portrays Spears as a woman who disguises herself in different costumes and follows her boyfriend through his daily activities to expose him in the end.

The video also contains interspersed scenes of Spears naked in a steam room, as a response to the attacks she had received over the years about her weight.

The song has been covered by a numerous artists from different genres, including Lily Allen, Franz Ferdinand and Girls Aloud.

[2] On September 19, 2008, a low quality 37 second snippet of the song was posted on the official website of 107.5 The River, a radio station in Lebanon, Tennessee.

[2][6] "Womanizer" is an uptempo electropop and dance-pop song with dark synths that runs through a dance oriented beat.

[9] According to Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times, Spears' "quick-witted" vocals are similar to the style of the Andrews Sisters.

Peter Robinson of The Observer gave the song the maximum five stars referring to it as a "comeback single" and as having a "genius hook".

[12] Popjustice compared it to "Some Girls" by Rachel Stevens and added "[The] track lays a really strong foundation for the fully-realised comeback that didn't quite happen last time and it's hard not to think of it as a late contender for single of the year.

[14] In the album review, Nekesa Mumbi Moody of The Providence Journal said that along with "Shattered Glass", they were "[two] fun disco tracks".

[15] USA Today writer Steve Jones named it one of the standout tracks of the album and commented that "she seems most at ease when she's playing the teasing tart".

[10] Mike Newmark of PopMatters called the song " a meaty, high-voltage shuffler helmed by the Outsyders, who do an admirable job of recreating the chemistry of Spears and Danja on last year's single 'Gimme More'".

[19] Jim Farber of the Daily News said the pre-chorus was the most repetitive in a pop song since the Shaggs's "Gimmie Dat Ding".

[4] Jim Abbott of the Orlando Sentinel called it "basically an adult update of her teen-pop tease act".

[23] In the United States, the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number ninety-six on the issue dated October 18, 2008.

[27] As of July 2009, "Womanizer" was listed at number thirty-nine in the best selling digital songs of all time, with sales over 2,777,600.

[37] "Womanizer" reached the peak in a number of European countries, including Belgium (Flanders), Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden.

It also reached the top ten in Austria, Belgium (Wallonia), Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

[42] Spears thought of the video as a sequel to "Toxic", as seen in her documentary Britney: For the Record, whereas Kahn approached it as "a 2008 answer" to the previous clip.

When the first verse begins, the official version of Spears wearing a slip nightgown is making breakfast for her boyfriend (Brandon Stoughton) as he gets ready for work.

commented that "in addition to seeing Brit in three different sexy getups, the video [...] features an oiled-up Britney writhing around in nothing but a smile".

[48] Courtney Hazlett of MSNBC claimed "When Spears isn't shown naked and writhing in a steam room, she's fired up".

[50] The music video for "Womanizer" became a worldwide success right after it premiered on the Internet, gaining seven million viewers in less than 48 hours.

[58] The following night, Spears performed the song at Star Academy, with similar choreography and dance moves but wearing a red strapless dress.

Following "I Wanna Go", which featured her dancing with members of the audience onstage, Spears performed "Womanizer" while surrounded by her dancers dressed as police officers.

"[63] Ed Masley of The Arizona Republic called the back-to-back performances of "I Wanna Go" and "Womanizer" "a triumphant double shot of dance-pop greatness.

'"[65] Spears is currently performing "Womanizer" as the second song for her Las Vegas residency, Britney: Piece of Me at The AXIS theater.

[71] Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly explained that "the song has been covered by other artists with an enthusiasm only matched in recent times by musicians' desire to remake Radiohead's 'Creep' in their own image".

[71] Her cover was a stripped-down version, that according to Nick Levine of Digital Spy, "might provoke those who reckon it doesn't have much of a chorus to revise their opinion".

In the 2012 Glee episode "Britney 2.0", actors Melissa Benoist, Alex Newell and Jenna Ushkowitz performed a cover of the song.