It all depends on what you want from it. I don't like 9mm that much, but it works. A well placed shot with one will do the trick. People are either Glock fans or Glock haters...there is no middle ground. I won a couple of them and I like them. The quality is certainly there, they are as tough as you will find. I have tricked out the two that I have with custom internals to make them more user friendly.
Neither of my Glocks are small enough to be very viable for concealed carry. I have the 17L and the 20.
At the risk of offending any Ruger pistol owners....stay away, they are cheap for a reason. I own several Ruger rifles, including an array of tricked out 10/22 rifles...some costing over 1k without optics. I also have a very rare Ruger six gun in an obscure caliber....but it is in my collection due to its obscure nature...not it's handling or shootability.
IMHO, the two top names in semi auto handguns (aside from the myriad of 1911 custom jobs) are Sig and HK. The Federal Air Marshals rely on the Sig. I know a FAM with over 10k rounds logged in his duty weapon, with only one FTF, coming from an odd shooting position from the wrong hand.
Rather than go with the .40, take a look at the .357 Sig. This is a .40S&W case necked down to a .357 bullet. It is quite a round!
For concealed carry, and ease of use for female (or anybody really), a Sig 232 is an excellent choice. Even though it is essentially a 9mm short (.380), it still has the capacity to stop an attacker...permanantly. it is small enough to carry easily, and is one hell of a shooter. I had one for a short period of time (I wish I still did), and shooting at 30-35 yards, it was pretty easy to keep an entire magazine in an 8" metal plate. I'm no marksman with a pistol either, so this means alot to me.
Here is a link to the 232, and you can look around on the site for other Sig pistols.
http://www.sigarms.com/products/clas...?product_id=42
HK also makes a fine line of pistols for protection. Don't rule them out.
The bottom line is that you truly get what you pay for. There are bargain priced weapons that perform very well. However if my life depends on it, I would prefer to have a solid company supporting the product I am using...rather than an extra 200 bucks in my pocket.