Software concepts and applications

¶ … women in the software development industry have to work harder as compared to men to achieve success. It has one source.

Laura Martin's (2002) article "Software Development Opens Doors for Women" advocates the software development industry as "absolutely loaded" with wonderful opportunities for women. She supports her arguments through interviews of twelve successful women working in the software development and related industries. However, where there are success stories, there are also conditions of limited opportunities for women in the industry as compared to men. In other words the door to opportunity does not open for women; it has to be pushed open by women as those that Martin interviewed in her article.

Objective Summary

Martin begins her article by identifying the changing roles of women in the information technology domain. She suggests that women have an increasingly larger role in the technological industry compared to the past when men were the driving force behind the industry. However, the road to women's participation in the technology world has not been smooth every step taken forward is a tribute to the strength and persevering quality of the women's character. Martin [2002] shows how each woman software developer interviewed put in hard work, ambition, dedication, training, and often sacrificed her personal life to achieve the success in her professional life. The author ends with a summary of all the right career moves women need to make such as hard work, getting good grades and getting valuable experience in the field, in order to attain success in the software industry.

Analysis

The article not only advocates the idealistic title of the article, but also identifies the characteristics of women that have led them to success in the software industry. The women interviewed by the author speak of success often at a cost of their personal lives. Furthermore the author also provides grounds for arguments that successes in the industry comes with much bias attitudes and discriminations and only if women can put aside their personal and emotional problems can they move forward in the industry. This fact is shown by the small number of women who have made it to the managerial level. Yet, consider the words of an application developer Lisa Dahilig, in CNA, who says "I can see that it's hard to get to the management level as a woman... But many do make it."

Hence, it can be said that although women are not furnished with the same variety of opportunities as men through hard work and aggressive moves, eventually female programmers attain success equivalent to if not more, than their male counterparts.

Subjective Response

Martin[2002] mentions instances of successes achieved by female programmers and developers but ignores those women who have not made a mark in the field and thus ignored the reasons that cause failure. Often women interviewed by the author themselves agreed to the scarcity of women professionals in the software development industry. However, they also acknowledged the fact that they work for managers who are females and thus, perhaps have been responsible for recognizing their work. This makes it only incidental that the doors of opportunities are opened for them. Had, Martin [2002] also made a study of the various failures that faced the women she would have been able to differentiate the characteristics of success and failure thus making her article more effective in terms of research. For example Diane B. DeMarco, IT VP at Aventis Pharmaceuticals states, "... being a woman has opened a lot of doors for me." This does not however suggest that software development has opened doors for women.