The Wulz Sisters and the Cat That Fought Mussolini

A Guardian feature this week returns attention to the Wulz sisters, Wanda and Marion, the Trieste photographers who used their studio portraits to defy the patriarchy of fascist Italy. The piece, by the paper's culture desk, focuses on how the sisters photographed dancers, fencers and other famous women — as well as their cat, Mucincina — in a quiet but pointed act of resistance.

The Guardian quotes Federica Muzzarelli, a scholar of photography, on the conditions of the era: "In those fascist times," she says, "women were not free. They were regarded as mothers and homemakers." The Wulz sisters, the feature argues, weaponised their family pet and their camera against that confinement, producing images that celebrated female physicality and independence at a moment when the regime sought to reduce women to domestic roles.