Feminist, activist and musician, Alix Dobkin died on this day in 2021
Alix Dobkin made her mark creating what could arguably be described as one of the first lesbian albums.
A performer on New York’s folk scene in the 1960s, Dobkin discovered feminism after hearing radio show host Liza Cowan interview Germaine Greer in 1970. Hearing the interview set Dobkin off on a path that saw her talking to other women about male supremacy and women’s oppression.
The following year she was a guest on the radio programme Electra Rewind, which was produced and presented by Cowan. The pair described it as “love at first sight”; soon afterwards they began a relationship which saw them both coming out as lesbians and setting up home with Dobkin’s daughter.
In 1973 Dobkin released her first album, Lavender Jane Loves Women, performing with Kay Gardner and Patches Attom. When the group could not find anyone interested in putting out their music, Dobkin formed her own record company, Women’s Wax Works. Unashamedly a queer record, “Long live Dyke Nation! Power to the women!” Dobkin wrote on the album’s liner notes.
Among the album’s tracks was The Woman in Your Life Is You, which Dobkin wrote for Cowan; Taking Lesbian – a reworking of Pete Seeger’s Taking Union – and a cover of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want to Be with You.
In 1979 she became the first American lesbian musician to undertake a European tour. Dobkin’s later releases included Living with Lesbians (1975), Xx Alix (1980) and These Women Never Been Better (1986). Dobkin toured Australia and released a live album of her show titled Yahoo Australia, as well as several compilation albums.
The singer is also remembered for the slogan The Future Is Female. She was captured wearing a T-shirt with the phrase in a photograph taken by Cowan in the 1970s. In recent years the image has had a second lease of life and become a worldwide slogan for feminism.
Dobkin was also a vocal opponent of the inclusion of transgender women in women-only spaces and was critical of the transgender rights movement.
Her autobiography, My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming Onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, & Coming Out in the Feminist Movement, was published in 2009.
She was born in New York City and raised in Philadelphia and Kansas City. She was a graduate of the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. She suffered a brain aneurysm on 29 April 2021 and was admitted to hospital.
She was taken off life support on 11 May and discharged from hospital on 17 May, passing away two days later surrounded by her family.
