Changes in values: Evaluating opportunities for women’s changes of female empowerment in software development

The discrimination of women within the labor market has a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension. These dimensions culminate in the problem of highly skilled jobs within the technical sector. The proportion of women amongst employees and students in this area is very limited, the reasons for this often being old-fashioned bureaucratic structures and a hierarchical corporate culture. Despite these forms of organization, agile frameworks, which are becoming increasingly popular and important, especially within software development, are setting the benchmark for team-based structures as well as a corporate culture based on communication and cooperation. The research questions posed are therefore whether agile frameworks could be used to increase the attractiveness of jobs within the software development sector for women as well as to increase opportunities for women`s empowerment within this sector. To answer these questions briefly, this paper focuses on new agile management roles as well as on women software developers in several European countries. Therefore, we will see that there are opportunities for empowering women but there is also – once again – a risk of gender stereotyping.