"Women in Punk" Part 1 (Punk@50)

“It changed everything. All sorts of different art came out of it—the people that made the flyers, the people that wrote the fanzines, not just the bands.”

Recorded live at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles as part of Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50, Jessica Schwartz moderates a Women in Punk conversation with Jula Bell Liebi, Pleasant Gehman, and Tequila Mockingbird. Following an introduction by Goethe-Institut Los Angeles director Luisa Rath-John and an archival clip from Tequila's collection, the panel begins with memory: what remains when the people, places, images, and absurdities of an earlier punk scene are encountered decades later.

Moving through freedom, surveillance, silliness, anger, friendship, nightlife, touring, fashion, film, clubs, shared houses, and the informal networks through which people found one another, the panelists remember punk less as a fixed genre than as a social world. Their stories foreground the creative practices surrounding bands—from flyers and fanzines to performance, writing, casting, clothing, and art—and the forms of mutual recognition and support through which scenes traveled well beyond Los Angeles.

The conversation repeatedly returns to women’s experiences within those worlds: what early punk made possible, what remained difficult, and how women built friendships and creative lives alongside one another. Rather than offering a tidy history of “women in punk,” Part 1 unfolds through stories—ridiculous, intimate, sometimes unruly accounts of finding one another, making things, getting by, and learning how to become comfortable in one’s own skin.

“Women in Punk” is part of Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50, a project of the Goethe-Institutes in the United States and Mexico marking the 50th anniversary of punk through a series of exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, and discussions that focus on punk as a subculture, protest movement, and catalyst for self-determination.

Featuring:

Tequila Mockingbird

Jula Bell Liebi

Pleasant Gehman

Moderated by Jessica Schwartz.

Introduced by Luisa Rath-John, Director, Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.

Recorded September 2026.

Archival media:

Excerpts from Tequila TV, courtesy of the Tequila Mockingbird L.A. Punk Museum Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections Punk Archive.

Links + References:

Discussion : Women in Punk @ Tequila Mockingbird's Punk Museum - Goethe-Institut USA

Goethe-Institut USA |

Credits:

Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.

Editorial support: Arrow Menendez– audio editing and audio-synced transcript.

Panel photograph by Gary Leonard @tmpgaryleonard.

Transcript:

Audio-synced transcript

Theme Music:

Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.

Related:

Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast.

About Punkast:

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.

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