'Woman I' is part of the 'Women' series that de Kooning presented at the Sidney Janis Gallery, causing controversy in the art world. The canvas is covered with vigorous, creamy, and silvery hues in a frenzy of vertical and horizontal gestures, from which a wide-eyed, large-breasted woman emerges, with blonde hair and a big smile. The figure appears constrained yet full of energy, and her tapering towards the knees and ankles is similar to prehistoric figurines and Cycladic idols, both examples of the importance of the female form in the art to which de Kooning often referred. De Kooning merges the figure and ground together, blurring the distinction between them, and creating an effect he called "no-environment." In the Women paintings from the early 1950s, we can see how de Kooning will later merge body and landscape in his paintings.

De Kooning frequently returned to the theme of women, and some believed that his turbulent relationship with his wife, his estrangement from his mother, and his infidelity was the source of this subject. The artist was accused of hating women, as he used smears of red paint to create three bullet holes across the woman's chest, but de Kooning responded by saying, "I thought it was rubies." Elaine de Kooning clarified that the bullet holes were actually fashionable rubies that de Kooning saw in a Harper's Bazaar magazine and never forgot.

Critics projected their own anxieties and misogynist tendencies onto de Kooning's work, failing to recognize his engagement with and incorporation of popular consumer culture in his paintings. De Kooning referred to his women as funny and larger than life, satirizing the shoppers in department stores and the fashionable ladies who walked down Madison Avenue. Although he looked to ancient idols and classical odalisques, he was equally fascinated by pin-up girls and movie stars. De Kooning was one of the few Abstract Expressionists to take on the such subject matter, and his work became an important reference point for younger artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, and later Pop Artists.