PHP Women by Ben Ramsey

If you’re keeping count, you’ll know that there are seven women listed in my blogroll. These seven women are PHP programmers, and I’ve made it a point to include them in my blogroll because women are underrepresented in PHP and these women provide a much-needed voice for all female PHP developers. However, it still seems that there are very few PHP developers who are women, or perhaps, they’re just not very active in the community, which is my hunch (seeing as how there are at least four women who frequent the Atlanta PHP meetings).

Tonight, during a conversation on IRC, my good friends Ligaya Turmelle and Elizabeth Naramore resolved to change this by announcing a call for the creation of a women’s group for PHP programmers. Now, I’m not a woman, but I’m blogging about this because I think this is an important opportunity for the PHP community to reach out to the female programmers of the world and make them feel included in what has largely been a man’s industry.

So, if you’re a woman and you’re a PHP programmer or you’re just interested in the group, drop by Ligaya’s or Elizabeth’s blogs and let them know. You can also find them both in #phpc on Freenode IRC.

9 Comments

Sara October 9, 2006 at 08:01

I'm a php'er and last I checked I have a pair of ovaries. I'll check out the ladies links above. Thanks.

Evert October 9, 2006 at 21:23

Maybe we should also get user groups for different ethnicities, sexual orientation or religions..

(I personally think it doesn't matter if you are a guy or a gal..)

Ben Ramsey October 9, 2006 at 21:40

This isn't an issue concerning lack of women PHP programmers or minority oppression or a battle of the sexes or anything like that. I think the goal here is just to call attention to those women who are PHP developers and then they can get together and talk about girl-stuff at conferences... stuff I don't want to hear anyway ;-)

Elizabeth October 9, 2006 at 22:45

Yes, Evet - Ben's right-- it was certainly not meant to segregate ourselves, it's main purpose was to just help us not feel so isolated in such a male-dominated industry, and really to gauge how many women are actually out there and programming PHP. That's all - no feminist hard feelings or anything like that. :)

Hatem October 10, 2006 at 12:48

Anyone remember php-princess.net ??

Evert October 11, 2006 at 03:51

Allright, allright..

I'll take it back =)

Ben Ramsey October 11, 2006 at 05:15

php-princess.net still exists. Daynah runs a blog on it now at http://daynah.php-princess...., but I don't know how to get in touch with her. I bet she'd like to get in touch with Ligaya and Elizabeth, as well.

Hatem October 14, 2006 at 21:31

Ben, you can try her orkut account : http://www.orkut.com/Profil... :-)

Alison Holloway December 18, 2006 at 01:21

There was a group started about this time last year. The contact I had was another person at Oracle and I can offer the name if you're interested.

Nothing happened with this group that I know of, and there was a slight bit of "we're better than men" going on, so I didn't pursue it. I don't like that kind of thinking. Seems to defeat the point of feminism.