The overall structure of "The Woman" is very unique. It follows no classical structure, such as sonnet, ballad, limerick, etc. Instead Boland uses a more modernist format with very short lines consisting of only single words and mostly incomplete phrases, and no rhyme or meter. The stanzas are organized only by their three-line structure into a series of 19 tercets. Typically a poem consisting of tercets like this one are similar to those made up of couplets (2-line stanzas) in that each stanza is somewhat self-contained and sensible. However, here the stanzas are disjointed and confusing as stand-alone pieces. Where one thought begins may be in the third line of a tercet, or the first. Sometimes the lines consist of a single word, such as "screamlessly" (38), sometimes a nearly complete phrase, as in "It's what / I set my heart on." (40-41).
This heavy use of enjambment creates of a sense of both disorientation and automation. Automation especially emphasizes the position of this woman in a social context -- a feeling of being forced against her will, despite this self-inflicted transformation. Without meaning within each line, the emotional and semantic power of the poem is brought on by lines where a single word carries with it a burden and impact in and of itself, like is like 38, perhaps the most emotionally charged line in the piece. It also forces the reader to consider the poem in its entirety rather than choosing individual lines and stanzas to analyze singularly or out of context, just as womanhood and femininity cannot be analyzed out of its social context.