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Currently, I am working for a woman-owned organization that does
contractor/full-time placement and small software engineering projects.
We adhere to IEEE standards and follow the software engineering
life cycle from requirements analysis through integration tests.
My last two projects were to train simulator development, and robotics
manufacturing facility factory acceptance testing. Currently, I
am working on a SCADA project for the transit industry in detail
design. I received my BS in Applied Mathematics, my BS in Secondary
Education, and my M.S.I.S. I am always challenged to be learning
new technical and domain knowledge as well as adjusting to working
with new colleagues and customers. A tough barrier is the lack of
free flow of information that sabotages performing quality work
and is contrary to the purpose and success of the business. Working
in a male-dominated field excludes females from the natural sharing
of information that comes from just hanging out together. When females
try to promote other females, it polarizes the males against them
and hinders quality development and sabotages the promotion and
recognition of females. Females are pressured to become the managers
because they are more skilled with interpersonal relationships.
This is detrimental to their technical careers. The logical and
mathematical components of software engineering are valued more
highly than the verbal, written and testing parts of software engineering
even though the logical and mathematical components comprise a smaller
portion of the work. Many of the males want to perform only the
programming portions, which leaves a major portion of the work to
the few females. Females are not given their due credit for what
they contribute and are evaluated more stringently (often by their
female counterparts). This is used to pay them less. Females are
still proving that they have the right to be in technical fields
(perhaps even to just be - but that would take much discussion in
several areas). Bella Abzug said that when a mediocre female is
paid as well as a mediocre male and promoted as easily as a mediocre
male then we would have equity. In the software engineering field
in the Pittsburgh area this is not the case.
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