15 Facts About Sophia Goudstikker

Sophia Goudstikker was a Dutch-born German photographer and feminist pioneer.

Sophia Goudstikker was one of the premier women's rights activists in Munich at the turn of the century and a business partner and companion of Anita Augspurg.

Sophia Goudstikker was the inspiration for three different writers' depictions of a more masculine woman, who defied typical feminine characterizations.

Sophia Goudstikker was the first unmarried German woman to obtain a royal license for photography and the first German woman allowed to argue cases before the youth court.

Sophia Goudstikker was born on 15 January 1865 in Rotterdam, Netherlands to Grietje and Salomon Elias Goudstikker.

Augspurg and Sophia Goudstikker determined that Munich would be open to a business enterprise run by women and relocated after Augspurg inherited her grandmother's estate.

Sophia Goudstikker was the first German woman, who was not married, to obtain a royal license for photography.

In 1898 the partnership dissolved and Sophia Goudstikker ran the studio alone until 1908.

Sophia Goudstikker wore short hair and simple, relaxed clothing and projected what seemed to contemporaries to be a female masculinity.

Diary entries of Salome and Bulow confirm that Sophia Goudstikker was the muse for all three characters and they gave Sophia Goudstikker the nickname "Puck".

Augspurg was often the speaker, while Sophia Goudstikker's job was to convince the authorities that the meetings were not for the purpose of political agitation.

Sophia Goudstikker led the legal protection office of the VFF from its founding in 1898 until her death and was the first German woman permitted to represent youth court cases.

Sophia Goudstikker has become a focus of American gender scholars of lesbianism, though has largely been ignored by German scholars.

From a gender perspective, Sophia Goudstikker avoids a strict binary interpretation as her business and intimate relationships were varied.

In part, the era imbued masculine identity with independence, and Sophia Goudstikker's androgyny forced writers to try to restore her femininity or destroy it entirely and masculinize her.