Queer As Art issue 2 April-May-June 2017 | Page 40

Alix Dobkin – A Woman’s
Love (1973)
Without a doubt the
least popular artist on this list,
Alix Dobkin is a folk singer-
songwriter from New-York
who publicly came out as a
lesbian artist during the early
70s, which was obviously
uncommon back then, while
being married to a man. On
top of the heavy lesbian
representation in her music,
she’s also a vocal activist in
women’s rights, proposing the
concept of women-only
spaces, extending that radical
feminism to Trans exclusion.
Even with that fact in mind, she
might be the first female artist to write
lesbian-themed songs in a positive
way. There are lots of lesbian love
songs in her discography (she was
playing in a band called Lavender
Jane) but A Woman’s Love describes
accurately how she first loved a man
until she declares that no man can
match a woman’s beauty. Besides
that, it remains a straightforward love
song, but the fact that she sang it
without caring about any backlash
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that could have happened is
courageous (but it also caused
modest sales of her albums which
would be categorised as Womyn’s
Music). Nowadays, Dobkin retired as
a musician and writer, focusing on
taking care of her grandchildren.