She 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.

Isadora Duncan,[8] Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg,[9] Rainer Maria Rilke,[10] and other artists, intellectuals and royalty had their photographs taken there.

[14] Near the end of her life, Goudstikker leased the business to the photographer Emma Uibleisen, but World War I and its aftermath had dispersed the traditional clientele.

Goudstikker wore short hair and simple, relaxed clothing[16] and projected what seemed to contemporaries to be a female masculinity.

The meetings of both organizations were kept under surveillance by police, who believed that they fostered immorality and breached the ban on women's political involvement.

[25][26] When Augspurg and Goudstikker′s partnership dissolved, Goudstikker moved toward practical issues of feminism focusing on economic and legal parity.

She 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.

[30] The era was one in which Victorian ideals of womanhood still demanded that a woman's place was within a heterosexual union and in charge of bringing up children and managing the household affairs.

[31][32][33] From a gender perspective, Goudstikker avoids a strict binary interpretation as her business and intimate relationships were varied.