On January 23, 2025, we had the opportunity to join the other 2 SI Clubs in Munich on an exclusive guided tour of the exhibition by American artist Gregory Crewdson at the Espace Louis Vuitton. The exhibition Picture Window is dedicated to a very interesting contemporary photo artist who takes a very close look at America in the 90s and 2000s. To do this, he uses a special, very elaborate technique that makes his photos look like paintings. He was inspired by film directors such as David Lynch and Steven Spielberg.

After the tour, we had the opportunity to watch the film Blue Velvet by David Lynch.

Once again, it was a very inspiring, cross-club event.

Tuesday, March 25th, 2025 at 6.30pm

Annual General Meeting of the Soroptistischen Hilfe München-Schwabing e.V.

Internal event

Tuesday, March 25th, 2025 at 7pm

“The Pillow Book“ of court lady Sei Shonagon 
a thousand years ago -- and today”.

Dr. Inga Streb 

Lecture

Tuesday, April 8th, 2025 at 7pm

Ecofeminism and intersectionality:
The nexus of gender, environment and health

Tanja Mancinelli

Lecture

Heroes Muenchen:
Boys and young men against violence against women

Our November club evening is traditionally always dedicated to an Orange Days theme.

“Heroes - against repression in the name of honor” is an AWO Munich initiative aimed at young men with a family history of migration.

Project manager Anna Königstein talked about the origins and development of this project. Group leader Tayfun Samli and two Heroes then gave a very vivid account of their practical work in the project and with school classes. They use role-playing games to talk to pupils from grade 9 upwards about prejudices, patriarchal structures, role models, love/relationships, human rights, feminism and a whole lot more. The demand from schools is huge and the waiting lists are long.

The interest of the club sisters and guests in the topic was very high, as there are relatively few projects for young men compared to the many good projects in the area of girls' work. Everyone was impressed by the commitment of the young men, which after all, also helps girls and women preventively.

Sisters, should prostitution have a prosperous future in Germany?

At one of our last club evenings, we heard a very convincing plea for the so-called "Nordic Model", which is used in Scandinavia to enforce the criminalisation of sex buyers, pimps and brothel operators.

Liane Bissinger and Dr. Inge Kleine from KOFRA (Communication Centre for Women in Work and Life) gave us an insight into the state of the discussion. Contrary to what is often claimed, the legislative changes of 2002 and 2017 have not improved the situation of prostitutes in Germany, on the contrary, they have massively worsened it and made Germany the brothel of Europe.

How should this now look in the future? Laws are legal norms: They determine how something has to be. The current legislation promotes prostitution and in particular leads to sex buyers being able to consider themselves law-abiding.

Feelings of shame due to deliberate violations of norms are either not built up in the first place (young clients) or greatly reduced by the lack of social sanctions and the assumption that they are 'only' using a completely legal service.

In addition, prostitution is a flourishing business in which everyone earns a lot of money, at the expense of the people who have to prostitute themselves and are usually suffering and traumatised. Is this really how it is supposed to go on??

Is this what we want or is it not time for a paradigm shift?

SI unites women from all continents, cultures and professions to work to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide and to contribute to better global understanding.

It is the world's largest service organisation of professional women with a socio-political commitment.

The organisation therefore provides a global professional and social network through its members and through international partnerships.

Worldwide, SI is represented in 118 countries with around 70.000 members in 2.900 clubs.

Soroptimist International Germany (SID) currently consists of 224 clubs with over 6.700 members.

Soroptimist International

Awareness - Confession - Movement