What’s a high-value woman?
How do you recognize the signs of a high-value woman?

If you are pondering these questions, this article is for you.

This post gives you the 12 most important traits that characterize high-value women.

High-Value Woman Traits

This article leverages solid psychology, research, and the author’s own experience.

A high-quality woman with the following traits is great girlfriend material, but also makes for a stable and reliable business partner, colleague or friend.

Let’s start:

#1. She is Feminine

A high-value woman doesn’t necessarily need to be attractive.

Sure, that’s a big advantage, but it’s not a necessary precondition.
But she definitely needs to be feminine and know how to present herself.

In these days of decreasing male testosterone and female increasing search for independence, men and women are becoming more and more similar.
And of course, some feminists and equal opportunity pundits will tell you that’s a good thing.
Well, don’t let those people fool you one bit. Let’s drop the PC and let’s state some truth:

Femininity is a must for a high-quality woman.

And that’s great news for women who are willing to work on themselves.

The fact that more and more women are losing touch with their femininity presents a great opportunity for high-quality women. They will stand out even more and reap more and more rewards.

Marilyn Monroe is a classical example of high femininity:

Monroe is extreme. You don’t need to go that far, as it might even be too much for our current social environment. But it’s a good example.

But what does feminine mean?
Read:

• How to be feminine
• Effective seduction examples: the feminine type

#2. She Takes Care of Her Appearance

Yes, I wrote appearance.

Popular nonsense bandied around these days is that “being” really matters while “appearing” is for the vapid.
Of course, that’s not true because the two are neither separate nor not mutually exclusive.
As a matter of fact, there is a relation between being and appearing. Have you ever heard of this quote:

Have you ever heard the quote:

You can’t care about others more than you care about yourself

Well, not everyone agrees with it. I don’t fully agree with it either.

But there certainly is a strong relationship between how much you care about yourself and how much you care about… Pretty much everything else. And caring is a sign of quality, with caring about yourself being one of the first and major indicators of overall caring.

Women who care about themselves are more likely to care about her career, her family, her goals and, eventually, her children.

From a dating perspective, a woman who cares about herself sends a powerful message to any men: the message that she will be a great return on investment.
The man unconsciously knows that, with her, his genetic inheritance is in good hands, and he is more willing to invest in her to get her.

Remember the rule of thumb: the more you care about yourself, the more valuable you appear, and the more people will value you and care about you.

All these external signs are important indicators of self-care:

• Personal hygiene
• Posture
• Voice
• Clothing
• Makeup

… And Doesn’t Hide It

It’s crazy how some women spend so much effort pretending they don’t care about themselves.

Don’t do it.
There is no virtue in being careless.

Pretending you put on the first old scruffy thing you saw in your wardrobe is a low-value way of trying to hide in the shades of mediocrity.
High-value women don’t do that.
High-value women take pride in caring about themselves.
They know that appearances and perception shape reality and they make no mystery they take care of them.

Look at her.
Sure, she has perfect lips. But how did she apply that lipstick? With millimetric precision.

And it’s not about youth or beauty.
Taking care of yourself is what will keep you a high-quality woman no matter the age.
Look at the difference between these 3 women, from the lowest quality to highest:

The first one doesn’t even try.
The second one tries but doesn’t know how to (average plain cardigan and sweater doesn’t fit her age/style).
And the third one cares and knows how to (and she is the oldest).

Reversal of the law

Just to be clear:

Caring about one’s appearance must not come at the expense of substance.

The high-quality woman is well-mannered, knows to talk and converse, has high social skills and is well-read and knowledgeable.
And she uses appearance like a high-quality product uses marketing: as two faces of the same coin.

#3. Takes Care of Her Health

Similar to the above, but addressing her body.
She takes care of:

• The food she eats (no fast food, no adding kilos of sauce & salt etc.)
• Drinks (avoids pops, colas, etc.)
• Exercising

Overall, she keeps her body running smoothly.

4. Cares About People

Simon Sinek says that high-quality leaders care about the people they lead.

That much is true.
And women do the same. Albeit in a different fashion than men.

Contrary to what Hussey recommends in Get The Guy, women shouldn’t walk around the bar asking people how they’re doing as if they owned the place (that’s the man’s way).

But they do let people know they’re happy to see them. Maybe a slight touch on their arm, a warm smile, a comforting word.
Or a simple “well done, I’m so happy for you”.

See more here on how to combine femininity and power.

Feminine AND Powerful: 9 Tips For Women Bosses

Cares About Her Partner

And of course, she cares about her partner.
And supports him to achieve what he wants to achieve.

With an important caveat, of course: she expects the same kind treatment back.
Like Regena Thomashauer says in “Pussy“, a high-quality woman only accepts win-win relationships that make both partners better off.

That’s why high-quality women don’t get stuck in toxic relationships and that’s why the asshole game is a poor style for long-term relationships with high-quality women.

Warning For Men

If a woman couldn’t care less about your dreams, goals, ambitions… About your health… Then she’s either extremely self-centered or she lacks empathy.
Either way though, she’s not a high-value woman.
And she’s not good relationship material.

Example:

Years ago I went to the hospital to treat a sudden hearing loss.

Once there they told me I should get hospitalized.
I called my girlfriend to ask if she could bring me the laptop and some more clothes.
As soon as she picked up she started talking about her job interview. I waited and waited for her to ask me how it was going with me.

But it never happened.

Eventually, I had to interrupt her to get a word in about my hospital visit (that she knew full well about).

After I hung up I was sadder for the state of my relationship than of my hospitalization. I think I had never felt more lonely than that day.
And at that point, I knew that relationship had to end.
She had shown very worrying signs of major self-centeredness.

Now on to the next one:

#5. She Is Emotionally Stable

Women tend to have wilder mood swings as compared to men, so they get a bit more leeway.

But a high-value woman is still expected to be:

• Relatively secure of herself and of her own worth
• Not going to make public drama
• Not excessively anxious
• No wild mood swings (a sign of borderline personality)
• Generally positive and uplifting

Emotionally stable doesn’t mean she doesn’t cry or that she never gets angry. It doesn’t even mean she can’t have a nervous breakdown or have bouts of slight depression and self-doubt.
Those are normal parts of life and dealing with them openly is actually another sign of high value.

Instead, she should not be like Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona:

She looks like a borderline personality disorder. But beyond any diagnosis, she is not a high-quality woman, no matter how “artist” she is.

#6. She Has A Good Command of The English Language

Language highly correlates with intelligence.

But it goes beyond communication skills and intelligence.
It shows that she has read and taken care of her education. And with English being the current lingua franca of the world, a great command of the language shows an openness to communicate with the world, and a drive to make herself heard in that world.

Difference Between Men and Women

Note that women and men differ here.

Women often tend to go broad with languages rather than deep.
Such as, it’s more likely for women to speak more languages than it is for men.
More women living abroad will try to pick up the local language as compared to men. This is because of women’s stronger drive to build social networks.

I pondered whether I should even meet her at all…

Extenuating Circumstances

Immigrants who live in a non-English speaking country get a pass if they learned the local language.

These women had to focus first and foremost on the local language, so it’s understandable if English fell off the wayside.

Also a bit more leeway for women from “stronger” or far away cultures, ie: China, Japan, Korea, France, Italy, etc.

#7. She Is Radiates Positivity & Lifts People Up

Let me explain this.

Men should have a pursuit, a goal, or a major interest.

For women, it’s not as necessary.
Indeed too obstinate a pursuit can become a drawback.
Not that there is anything wrong with obstinately pursuing anything per se, but it’s easy to lose femininity when on a single-headed warpath.

“Radiating positivity” doesn’t mean “always happy”.
That’s just silly.
It simply means her baseline mood is slightly towards the positive side of the spectrum, and that she interfaces the world with a smile instead of a growl.

That conveys lots of positive quality.
Baseline mood is either genetic, which is good, or it means that she works on herself and makes an effort to be on the more optimistic side of life -and even better sign-.

Without getting into politics, what feelings, states, and emotions do you think the two women below evoke in the people around?
Very different impact, right:

Example: When Negativity Is Out of Control

At the opposite end of the spectrum is women who are always angry or bored.

I had a girlfriend who’d often complain to me “I’m bored”. And then expect me to lead her out of her state.
And when I’d be busy with my own things, she’d get cantankerous, argumentative and bad-tempered.

As you can imagine, when that trend repeats over and over, it’s not just you who helps her out, but it’s also your partner who drags you down.
Definitely not a high-quality life partner.

#8. She Is Socially Skilled

Great social skills are important for everyone.

And they are even more important for women.

Women, on average, are more skilled than men at building social networks (The Man’s Guide to Women) and we could argue that social skills for women have been a matter of survival strategy (The Moral Animal).

It’s been observed among primates instead that females tend to further their interests -and that of their families and tribes- by building networks of alliances.
And it’s not that different for humans.

In a way indeed, we can say that the ability to effortlessly form friendships is a sign of femininity.
But what are these “social skills”?

Basic Social Skills

Social skills include:

• Conversation
• Making friends
• Small talk
• Getting to know people
• Bonding

Advanced Social Skills

And these are the “top socialite” social skills:

• Turning down a guy’s advances without hurting his ego (keep a friend)
• Release tense social situations
• Deflecting inappropriate comments without making enemies

Here’s an example for the last one:

Broderick handled Trump’s inappropriate joke like a truly high-quality champ.

#9. She Plays Little Games…

The women’s dating literature is all about playing games.
By far the three most popular being:

1. Make him wait for sex
2. Pretend you’re not interested
3. Let him invest more

We’ve already debunked the idea of letting him wait for sex, the drawbacks of feigning disinterest and the issues of making him invest more.
The issue of nasty games is that they are win-lose. And dating win-lose starts win-lose relationships.

This is not to say that high-quality women don’t play any games at all.
Quite the opposite.

Games are part of the marketing package. What I’m truly referring to here are the nasty games.
Instead, the high-quality woman deploys games that build people up and make others feel good.

And, once in a relationship, she decreases the number of games because she knows that a relationship based on honesty and mutual support is superior to a relationship where she’s constantly gaming her partner.

For example, the high-value woman does not:

• Try to make you jealous
• Threaten to break up
• Pretend his exes were better

10 Nasty Games Women Play (Women, Stop These!)

… And Prefers Collaborative Approaches

Instead, she prefers building his partner up like.

And she is not afraid of showing her fondness and admiration, because she knows that positive behavior begets more positive behavior.

This is the message one woman sent me:

Also read more in:

• 4 strategies for power
• Enlightened cooperation

#10. Knows When to Set Boundaries

The high-value woman is pleasant and welcoming, but she’s not a pushover and knows when it’s time to take a stand and defend her boundaries.

If you’re not holding your end of the relationship, she’ll let you know that.
When a boss is disrespectful to her, she knows how to demand the respect she deserves.

Her rule of life is that she is not disrespectful to anyone, and people have no right to be disrespectful to her.

#11. She Is Emotionally Intelligent

Emotional intelligence is a vast topic, but it can be boiled down to:

1. Understanding and acting on other’s emotions and needs
2. Understanding and acting on one’s own emotions and needs

Example:

Years ago me and an ex-girlfriend of mine were removing old wallpaper.

I was making fun of her as being largely ineffective.
I was surprised she was taking it so personally, but truth to be told I was also amused by what I perceived as her large overreaction.

These days I would have spotted the signs it was going too far, but back then I was quite a bit thicker and I kept going.
Then, at a certain point, said something like this:

Her: My blood is boiling, I’m losing control

Little later she left the room to go decompress on her own.
I later rejoined her, apologized, explained I didn’t realize I was going too far and then we resumed without further trouble

The only reason that didn’t turn out to be a big argument and a drawn-out fight was her outstanding emotional intelligence.
The fact that she was able to realize she was reaching her limits and was able to articulate it is a major sign of emotional intelligence -and in relationship literature is called a repair attempt-.

And the fact she preferred to go decompress instead of blowing up is another major sign of self control.
Both are signs of high value women.

#12. She Has a Growth Mindset (And Don’t Take Things Personally)

I won’t go in detail here, but a growth mindset as explained by Carol Dweck means that people believe they can get better instead of their traits being cast in stone forever.

It might seem a small detail, but it changes everything.
People with a growth mindset are:

• Resilient to criticism
• Look for ways to improve
• Enjoy challenges
• Approach problems with a “we can do it” attitude

And as a man who’s been with a few very touchy women, lemme tell you: being able to speak your mind without fear of hurting a small China-like ego is really a game-changer (plus these women usually go places with their lives).

#13. Bonus: The Unapproachable Style

There are two ways of being a high-quality woman:

1. Welcoming and uplifting to (almost) everyone
2. Unapproachable and only for selected few ones

I put this one last because some women overdo it and end up looking bitchy and conceited, and that’s not high-quality anymore but screams “gold-digger with little to offer”.

However, there are ways to look “unapproachable and make it work. Maybe the topic for another article.

What Are NOT High-Value Traits

The following are sometimes mistaken for signs of high quality. And while the can be, they’re not necessarily so:

1. Has a Good Career

Historically, men have monopolized the direct control of resources. These days more and more women have direct access to resources.
Direct access to resources in our society means:

• Great job
• Top grades in university
• Go-getter attitude
• Top performers in sports
• …

While all these attributes are very helpful for a man to be a high quality man, they are much less crucial for women.
A woman these days has indeed the luxury of choosing between two roads to high quality:

1. Control resources herself
2. Secure (or control) a man who controls resources

An example of the first category would be Amal Clooney, a woman who also manages to keep her femininity.
An example of the latter is any woman who marries a top man and then… Stays out of the limelight herself.

When Career Women Are Not High Value

Career women pay lip service to the idea that fending for herself is not “better” than being a stay at home woman. But deep down they sometimes think they do are higher quality.
However, when they fall for that line of thinking is exactly when they show a major sign of low quality: resentment.
They resent women in more traditional roles because they fear those women will make them look masculine by comparison.

When Career Women Are High Value

However, women who can directly control resources themselves AND stay feminine at the same time, that’s a major feat there.

Example

She’s possibly a bit too strong and rough around the hedges, but is an interesting mix of go-getter attitude and femininity:

2. Has Vast Knowledge

Being well-learned, cultured or being “worldly” is important if and only she is supposed to entertain disparate guests for parties. Or if she is part of very intellectual circles.

Otherwise, it’s a good to have but its absence doesn’t turn a high-value woman into a low-quality one.

Example

Same for her body, a high-quality woman will not flaunt her superior knowledge.

Showing off is a masculine trait -and often associated with insecurity.
The woman in this example is seemingly high quality, but she’s otherwise being rather masculine and rude:

3. Comes From a Good Family

We all have a natural tendency to look at the family of origin and draw conclusions.

And don’t get me wrong, this is not the kind of website to tell you “don’t generalize” and “don’t jump to conclusions”.
Don’t do that indeed… When you have the means to dig deeper.
But when you don’t, in the face of limited information, a badly educated guess is better than not guessing at all.
That being said, here’s why poor backgrounds are not a sign of personal quality:

• Some people overcome it

And when a woman can overcome a bad household of origin, then it becomes an even bigger badge of quality for her.

• Sometimes people swing in the opposite direction

While most tend to follow in the footsteps of their family, some swing in the opposite direction.
So for example a woman in a poor household might swear to herself she’ll never be poor again. Or a woman who witnessed a cheating mother wreck her family will swear she’ll never cheat and never accept cheating.

4. Is Smart

Intelligence is sometimes overrated.

Some researchers, like Goleman and Bradberry, say that emotional intelligence is vastly more important than IQ.
And when it comes to success, grit probably also matters much more than IQ.

That’s not to say you must disregard intelligence.
What I mean is that, from a male perspective, all you need is a level of intelligence that is above a minimum threshold not too far away from yours.

I usually define it in terms of what you can laugh about.
If she can get your jokes and innuendos and you can laugh together about them, then you’re golden.

SUMMARY

In one sentence:

High-value women are feminine women who take care of themselves, as well as caring and taking care of the people around them, including their partners.

There is a lot of overlap between high-quality men and high-quality women, but also some major differences.
This article provides you with an overview of the traits of high-value women.