Reflections on the passing of Alix Dobkin

 When news of Alx Dobkin’s stroke and immanent death broke last week, I felt a twinge of guilt before recognizing my sorrow and sense of immanent loss. As I thought of her occasionally during recent years, the first memory to pop up was an uncomfortable conversation with her at a conference over a political disagreement several years ago. In the face of death, the great equalizer, all disagreements seem trivial, and I suddenly felt it was churlish and a waste of time to even remember it. What’s worth remembering are the gifts she had in her life and the difference she made in mine. 

Alix, who died at 80, was a pioneer of what became “women’s music", a genre she helped birth in the early 70s. It was a genre that celebrated women’s autonomy, our right to love and make love with each other and our proud membership in what was called the second wave of feminism. With Kay Gardner and other lesbian-feminist musicians, she recorded the first recorded album of lesbian music: Lavender Jane Loves Women in 1973.  Then no mainstream recording label would touch an album by an artist who only wanted to perform for women, so Alix formed her own record company, Women’s Wax Works. It was a breakthrough album for lesbian-feminists seeking a sound track to our lives. 

Alix was already a celebrity of sorts, having played with Bob Dylan and other early folk greats of the 60s. At one point, her obituary in The Washington Post notes, she reportedly turned down the chance to record one of his songs. She married and had a daughter, but later separated from her husband and made a major life change. The catalyst was a radio interview with British feminist Germaine Greer, one of many consciousness raising events that marked that period. She took her daughter, partnered with a female lover, Liza Cowan, and took a new turn in music and toward lesbian-feminist organizing.

I remember playing songs from Lavender Jane in the Chicago apartment I shared with five other women in the early 70s. We lived collectively and felt we were part of something new. I had just quit my first job, writing for The Lerner Newspapers, and was searching for something that I hadn’t quite defined yet. I had been volunteering with the Emma Goldman Women’s Health Collective, which was trying to help women navigate a sexist health system and get good screening and counseling services for their reproductive needs. In the larger culture women were questioning whether the traditional career path of marriage and children was the only way to go—or whether it was wise at all in an often-oppressive culture  “I am a woman giving birth to herself” was the phrase on a poster, one of many aimed at women’s autonomy in that era. Alix’ s song “The Woman in your Life is You”, resonated with me and so many other women I know or once knew. I realized after her death was announced this week that the feelings of sorrow I had came not only from the end of a fine woman’s life, but also losses in mine: a person who was familiar to me over half a century, a reminder of my youth, and part of what seems a stream of losses as I age. 

At 74, I confess that I am a regular reader of obituaries—not out of a morbid search for who’s dying at a younger age than mine. Rather it’s because obits have become a kind of art form, the ultimate short story of the arc of someone’s life. In papers like The Washington Post, the writer is aware that readers want to know the deceased ’s contributions to the larger culture—a new invention or contribution to some field. In Alix’s obit in The Post, she was identified as the source of a meme that resonates in our time: ”The future is female”. Her lover, Liza Cowan, photographed her wearing a T-shirt with that phrase, and decades later it was echoed by Hillary Clinton and young feminists empowered in ways Alix could only hope for in her and my youth. It made me laugh, as I had not even been aware of the origin of the meme in the years since I first heard her songs.

Social media posts by friends and admirers focus on her music, and a tribute from Liza, her lover in those early days, told more of the story. Alix “called on her roots in folk music, Broadway musicals, and Balkan songs…based on storytelling.” Her confidence came early, “from a loving Jewish family in Philadelphia”, members for a time in The Communist Party, “and  she spent her early years listening to the music of Paul Robeson—who once visited her family—Pete and Peggy Seeger, Leadbelly, The Red Army Chorus” and others. There, Liza writes, “she gained a passion for civil rights and storytelling.” She later published a biography of her young years as a “red-diaper baby”.

Alix recorded 5 more albums after Lavender Jane and toured various countries, always performing for women. As she aged, she remained a performer and organizer, especially with Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC). In the last half of her life, Liza writes, she lived in Woodstock, New York, raising her daughter along with former husband Sam, leaving only to tour. And in her last years, performing took a back seat to helping care for her three beloved grandkids. This recent photo was taken in Woodstock.

Alix, like all of us, had many influences in her life, and no doubt she made decisions she either regretted or wished she had handled differently. Our uncomfortable discussion at the 2016 OLOC gathering revolved around the steering committee’s decision to disallow a Native American drumming circle from performing at the event because the group included men. The drummers had been invited by the guest speaker, a Native American poet, who later called out the conference for racism during her address. As an attendee, I felt embarrassed and angry. When I asked whether the issue would be discussed, Alix responded with a vague answer: it could be brought up at the Sunday finale. I did not follow through with that, leaving the gathering with the feeling that such a lesbian separatist stance, perhaps appropriate in the second wave’s early feminist days, was clearly inappropriate in the present. Perhaps Alix later re-evaluated that decision as both OLOC and the white-majority culture began to deal seriously with racism in following years. Like many, I have a tendency to freeze my ideological opponents in the past. 

Alix contributed much to music, lesbian-feminism and to those who loved her. Looking at the arc of her 80 years, it seems to me that she expanded more than she rejected the traditional family. She and her ex-husband Sam both raised their daughter, Adrian, for years. At the end her daughter  and son-in-law were with her, and lesbians around the world kept vigil online and perhaps in person. Obituaries select sections of a life to make a short story for the news. As we know intuitively, we all deserve a novel. If our lives end with the love and admiration Alix experienced, we will definitely be fortunate.