Created by myself and Lola Pinder, “PUSSY PROOFED” is a punk-feminist zine launched at VOLUME ANOTHER BOOK FAIR 2017, Artspace, Sydney.

The Protagonists of Punk
- Sarah Hibbs + Lola Pinder, 2017

This zine is the result of an open-ended invitation extended to share and continue a thread of rebellion, reverence, and irreverence to expand the geneology of powerful female-identifying figures. It does not aim to perpetuate idolisation nor is it intended to be read as a piece of nostalgia - we are not putting that pussy on a pedestall. It is by nomeans a complete compendium or even a complete introduction to the overlapping core principles of punk and feminism.
Punk is much more expansive than a one and a half minute song or fashion statement. It is very much still alive and continues to challenge prevailing modes of thought and push against the status quo. Rejecting ideas of punk as well as feminism as monoliths, we instead propose that both are made stronger by their fragmentation and inconsistency. These ideas are cohesive in their dissonance with a prevailing sense of determination and strong impetous for resistance against the status quo.

Rebel girl - you are the queen of my world - Bikini Kill

In the DIY spirit of punk - an ethos which encouraged so-called amateurs to pick up a guitar and ask a friend to join the band - we have asked our friends and peers to contribute with no criteria beyond: ‘create your own homage to female figures of punk’. A variable representation without focus, we open up the box with a very small example. ofthe lineage of transgressive femals figures with patterns of resistance to the norms they inhabit/ed. The smattering of homages here are testament to the broad ranging sensibility of punk, raising difficult questions of what punk is and what it means to be punk. We do aim to quantitatibely ‘prove’ who is the punk-est or how punk-ness is embodied, but rather, this is presented as a sprawling archive or family album of the personalities and ideologies that have made us. Here, contributions avoid the traditional bio, but use punk as a methodology in deference to art’s original punk, Hannah Hoch, to re-writing monarchical herstory, this is a silly sojourn or ad hoc anthonolgy through histroy and ideology.

If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution - Emma Goldman

The conditions for punk figures have varied but not changed; rebellion remains necessary.

CONTENTS

• Toilet / Elizaveta Malsteva

• Baroness Elsa & The Punk Archive / Alys Moody

• Jeanne d'Arc / Lola Pinder

• ECO/FEM / Elyse Goldfinch

• My calamity / Angelica Neville

• Mixed tape / Violet Nightingale

• Her boyfriend's a hairdresser / Megan Hales

• Pink on the inside / Violet Nightingale

• Kate Just chats / Nikita Holcombe

• Fowles in the frith / Ainslie Templeton

• Postcard on Pussy Riot / Phoebe Clarke

• God save the Queen / Sarah Hibbs

• Max fill / Theia Connell

• Betty Davis, if I'm in luck I might get picked up / Camilla Chapman

• The original slut / Natalie Moore

• Untitled / Elizaveta Malsteva

• Megan / Elizaveta Malsteva

• Motherhood, the most punk rock thing you can do / Stephanie Guest

• Memories of my first orgasm as a teen / Deb ▇▇▇▇▇

• Avenging Padmé Amidala / Trisha Jah

• L.M. Simpson, Frida, colour coding (vagina) / Luke Matthew Arnold

• Project Pussy stickers / Sarah Hibbs

Ed. 35/50 held by National Library of Australia, Canberra, Bib ID: 8070722.