The latest episode of the PHP Town Hall podcast has been released - Episode 5, "PHPness Gate, Sexism and Mental Illness". The usual hosts, Phil Sturgeon and Ben Edmunds, are joined by Ed Finkler and Mike Federmann to talk about recent events in the PHP community.

This was a tricky episode where we talk about some big genuine issues that affect PHP developers around the world, and we talked a lot about a t-shirt. After Chris Hartjes cheated on his /dev/hell podcast by joining us in Episode 3, Chris’ partner in crime Ed “Funkatron” Finkler decided to get revenge and come on the show. Our other guest Miko Federmann is a brilliant PHP and C developer who is a friend of Phil and Ben. She joins us on the show to discuss the recent hullabaloo known as “PHPness Gate” and the obviously connected issue of sexism in the industry.

You can listen to this latest episode either via the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 directly. If you like the show, consider subscribing to their feed too.

Due to some recent events at a PHP conference involving a company and their promotional tactics, a few members of the PHP community felt the need to share some of their thoughts about sexism in technology communities (some specifically in the PHP community). Here's the list of related posts and their authors:

• Cal Evans
• Matthew Turland
• Stefan Koopmanschap
• Keith Casey
• Brandon Savage
• Amy Stephan
• Paul Jones
• Aral Balkan
• Anthony Ferrara

Several other comments were made on twitter, including responses from the webandphp Twitter account about the comments/posts being made.

UPDATE: The Web and PHP Magazine folks have posted an official response to the comments made about the situation.

Anna Filina has a new post to her blog about her participation in the "Sexism in Tech" podcast that was recently released on the "Voices of the ElePHPant" podcast.

I had the pleasure of discussing with fellow members of the PHP community a very sensitive topic: sexism in tech. I have been invited to a special episode of Voices of the ElePHPant with Elizabeth (Beth) Tucker Long, Elizabeth (Liz) Naramore and Laura Thomson. Cal Evans was the host. The podcast’s page features links for some of the topics discussed. The purpose of this post is not to transcribe the podcast, but to share with you what I learned from this conversation and what I personally took away from it.

She talks about some of the comments that came up about the general tech culture and attitudes around women, some thoughts about "brand hygiene" and her opinions on wether the tech industry (or more specifically software development) will mature past this gender issue being a problem.

The Voices of the ElePHPant podcast has varied from it's usual interview style in this new episode - a panel discussion with several members of the PHP community, "Sexism in Tech".

Guests for this episode were Elizabeth Naramore, Laura Thompson, Anna Filina and Elizabeth Tucker Long. Cal and the panel discuss a few questions including:

• Given the tech in a male dominated industry [...] why are women entitled to change a culture that doesn't want to be changed?
• Does it make it okay if the material in question is generated by a woman if it objectifies women?
• Does the Forbes article [on sexism in tech] carry more weight because it was written by a woman and do you agree?

You can listen to this latest episode either via the in-page player, by downloading the mp3 or subscribing to their feed.