The Female Curve: Exploring the 5 types of women

By Johan and Marianna Van Niekerk

Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to sustain relationships with the women in your life? Do you sometimes wonder if the “traditional woman” is becoming extinct or have you ever thought about the possibility of a completely gender-fluid generation to come?

Well, in The Female Curve, Johan and Marianna van Niekerk unravel these issues by introducing the secret elements that differentiate five types of women in the world. In addition to sharing their extraordinary findings, they also examine how the elements of their “Female Curve Model” create the building blocks of these five female types.

To bring the 5 women to life, they introduce five fictitious friends who represent the typical characteristics, values, appearances, lifestyles and behaviours of each type.

Now the fun begins! What type are you and the women in your life? Knowing and recognising the five types of women can contribute to your personal growth and help you develop compassion, tolerance and acceptance for the fabulous females in your life.

This book is a must read for women and men alike as it holds some of the great secrets to build loving and lasting relationships with all the women in your life. The Female Curve promises to truly intrigue and pleasantly surprise you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johan and Marianna Van Niekerk
• Release date: Mar 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311149497

Johan and Marianna Van Niekerk

Johan and Marianna van Niekerk, live in South Africa and both obtained BA Degrees at the University of South Africa majoring in Industrial Psychology and Communication. They have been working as HR practitioners for many years, specialising in various Human Resources disciplines, such as People Development, Organisational Development, Change Management and Culture Transformation. Their determination to share their extraordinary findings about the 5 types of women in the world inspired them to write and publish their first book - The Female Curve - exploring the 5 types of women.

Book preview

Preface

Are women changing and why?

Introduction to the Female Curve

The 5 Types of women

Chapter 1

Meet Sam - Type 1

Chapter 2

Meet Helen – Type 2

Chapter 3

Meet Sarah - Type 3

Chapter 4

Meet Brenda - Type 4

Chapter 5

Meet Charlie - Type 5

Chapter 6

A tribute to the 5 Types of women

Closure

Wrapping it all up

PREFACE

Through the centuries, philosophers have agreed that women across nationalities and races are complex creatures who are very difficult to understand. Even men admit that they would have to be truly ingenious to understand the many and varied characteristics of womankind. Now, to make things even more complicated, it seems that women are going through another revolution. Every day, we meet more and more women who are totally autonomous - assertive, self-reliant and independent. Could it be that women are naturally programmed to adapt to shifts in society’s structures?

A man gives many question marks; however, a woman is a whole mystery

~Diana Stürm~

Whatever the cause of the changes, they are often bewildering. Time and again, Johan and I, both working in Human Resources and constantly studying human behaviour, have watched in disbelief as relationships between friends, family, married couples and colleagues have fallen apart. More often than not, these were good, solid relationships that had lasted for years, only to implode inexplicably down the line. Our own family and circle of friends have not been unscathed: friendships that had been part of our life suddenly collapsed, leaving us saddened and hurt. Fascinated by these relationship dynamics, Johan and I became even more avid people-watchers than we already were. As we watched and debated our observations, patterns started to emerge. We noticed that the lines separating men and women were becoming more fluid every day.

Females, we realised, were increasingly exhibiting personality traits typically associated with males and in some cases, becoming much more forceful and competitive. Could this be an indication of a completely gender-fluid generation to come, we wondered? Is the traditional woman slowly becoming extinct?

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, It’s a girl

~Shirley Chisholm~

These are complex questions with no easy answers. As we see it, our identity is like a soup with a complex mix of ingredients: values, genetics, sexual identity, hormones, environmental factors and experiences. All these ingredients make up who we are, what we stand for and how we interact with others. No person functions in a vacuum and our relationships with others start to unfold the moment we are born. During our life journey, relationships are formed with a wide variety of people: parents, grand-parents siblings, friends, colleagues and spouses. Some people say that their best relationship is with God. This book attempts to shed some light on those secret ingredients necessary for successful relationships, starting with disclosing the secrets of one of the main ingredients – the women in your life.

Women are all female impersonators to some degree

~Susan Brown Miller~

Johan and I have developed a model to help us – and hopefully you – make sense of the dynamics of human interaction. We have based our model on five distinctive reliance factors, which we see as the building blocks of our theory that there are five types of women in the world - and five types of men. (This will be explained in our book The Male Frame.) What is a reliance factor? Basically, it’s the instinctive response you use to cope with everyday life and which you fall back on in times of challenges or crisis.

Let’s say, for instance, that you are going for a job interview. To convince the interviewer that you are the right person for the job, do you rely on your looks and sex appeal to speak for you? Or do you rather show how intelligent and articulate you are? Alternatively, do you make a point of showing how different you are from the run-of-the-mill job hunter? Or do you perhaps make it clear how versatile your skills are and how willing and able you are to do anything? On the other hand, do you rather use your physical presence and charisma to clinch the job for you? Each of these five responses corresponds with one of the five reliance factors in our model of female behaviour, which we call The Female Curve. The five reliance factors in the Female Curve model are:

Social Reliance

Mental Reliance

Emotional Reliance

Self Reliance

Physical Reliance

Our thinking is that these reliance factors influence our thinking, power bases, physical issues and even our sexual power. For instance, if you have high physical reliance, the chances are good that you would use your physical appearance as your power base.

We believe that every person potentially relies on all of the factors but that the scale of reliance differs from person to person. Without trying to pigeonhole people, we have used the five reliance factors to differentiate between the five types of women. Each type is characterised by a high tendency towards one or more of these reliance factors. This does not mean that some of the other reliance factors are not present. It only indicates the main motivational drivers behind each type’s behaviour. Linked to the reliance factors on the Female Curve, we will also be looking at the femininity and masculinity of females, as communicated to us through physical appearance and body language. To make it even more interesting we also linked X and Y factors, religion and spiritual orientation and sexual identity to each of the female types.

It might interest you to know that we sent out questionnaires to women we know well to validate the characteristics, behaviour, personality traits and preferences against each of the types. You too can complete the questionnaire online by visiting the www.thefemalecurve.com website.

We hope this book will give you new insight into female characteristics and behaviour and perhaps into yourself as well. In my own case, the Female Curve has taught me to look at women differently, with empathy, admiration and acceptance. I now know how to make the best of my female friendships and where I fit in. When I want to philosophise about life, I have my Type 3 friend over for a glass of red wine. On the other hand, when I want to organise my daughter’s birthday party, I know I can count on my Type 2 friend to be there and make the party a huge success. When I want to have a laugh and forget about my problems, I visit my fabulously fun Type 1 friend. My Type 4 friend, however, is known for her selfless service to others. As for my Type 5 friend, she is brilliant at things like teaching me to stand up for myself or taking on any physical challenge.

After reading this book, we are confident that you too will be able to quickly identify yourself (and the women in your life)