You can download the full annual report in German and French here: WEB_CID_RappAnnu2023_v01

All the texts have been translated to English and can be found below.

Enjoy the read!

1. Greeting from the President

Dear friends and supporters,

With a new team and a new strategy, 2023 was another busy year for the CID. Two major projects in particular shaped 2023: structural sexism in Luxembourg’s cultural scene on the one hand, and the feminist analysis of election programmes and the national elections on the other.

In addition to a video campaign that made it into several cinemas, the CID also commissioned a Luxembourgish rap song and, together with the city of Dudelange and the LISER, carried out an inventory of cultural programmes (more on this further down).

Our highlight was certainly the big election event in September, where we put 14 politicians from 7 parties to the test: how much feminism is there in Luxembourg’s parties? More than half of the 150 attendees stated in the evaluation that the event had influenced their voting decisions.

With the “CID meets…” series of events, we not only wanted to get readers excited about our new long Thursday (the CID library is now open until 7.30 pm on Thursdays) but also to strengthen our networking work, raise awareness of various topics and at the same time make our own CID election demands easier to understand.

We also set ourselves the goal of making our library better known–which is why we were not only present in video advertisements on trams but now also regularly adorn hundreds of pairs of feet in sock form, which have set themselves the goal of “stomping the patriarchy”.

A big thank you to the Ministry of Equality and Diversity (MEGA), the Ministry of Culture, and the City of Luxembourg; we owe most of our funding for our conventions and other support to them. But also thank you from the bottom of our hearts, dear donors; every amount, no matter how small, is an important and highly appreciated support for our work.

In addition to the financial support, I would also like to thank our donors for their moral and practical help. 2023 was also the year of the CID Volunteers. Through several meetings, we were able to further expand the CID volunteer community. In 2023, many volunteers actively supported us at events, translated texts, looked after book tables, helped with labelling, took part in working groups or even joined our board.

I wish you a stimulating and memorable read.

Feminist greetings,

Julia Maria Zimmermann

2. The year 2023 – activities and highlights

3. The gender library and media centre

Women’s* and gender studies from the past and present for a just future: CID library, media centre and archives

The library team includes: Kathrin Eckhart (academic librarian), Tessy Schmitt (CID library and media library–specialising in scores and CDs) Jessica Sieradzki (reception and registration), Natalie von Laufenberg and Jamila Zakkoum (reception).

The library and media centre is constantly growing and takes up new topics from the feminist movement. The collection focuses on the following topics:

• Women’s and gender studies, queer theory and feminism
• Pedagogy, body, psyche and sexuality
• Media, labour, politics, sociology, law and history
• Natural sciences, technology and computer science
• Art and culture
• Novels, children’s and young adult literature, audiobooks and comics
• Specialised Department of Music/Musicology.

CID library holdings online: a-z.lu (in the Luxembourg network) (www.a-z.lu) and meta-katalog.eu (https://meta-katalog.eu/)

CID also houses archives on Luxembourgish women composers (Lou Koster, Helen Buchholtz, and contemporaries) as well as on Luxembourgish women’s history and the women’s movement (Press Archive Luxembourg 1992-2014), MLF and other initiatives as well as the political estate of Jeanne Rouff (lawyer, feminist, co-founder of the MLF).

What kind of place does the CID library want to be? 

Where do we come from & where are we heading? 

In 2023, there were many occasions to reflect on this question. The first half of the year was dominated by looking back:

On March 24, 2023, CID was invited by Heidi Rodrigues Martins (PhD, researcher at the Documentation Center on Migration (CDMH)) to give their insights at the EU COST-funded Women on the Move (WEMov) conference. The aim of the WEMov network is to make the role of women in migration visible and to compile primary sources throughout Europe. CID contributed with In-/Visibility: Migration and Gender in a feminist Luxemburgish association.

The motto of Luxembourg Archives Month in June this year was Archives diversifiées – Diversité d’archives (Diversified archives – Diversity of archives). We accepted the invitation of the Jonk BAD asbl (young archivists and librarians in training) to introduce ourselves. Together with the association Sweet Josephine, which supports us in the processing and rights clearance of our archives, we gave a tour of our political and musical archives on June 29th. We opened our safes and presented treasures–old autographs and early music prints, feminist flyers, photographic records, and founding documents of the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF). With insights from Cathy Collard, we discussed the special features of movement archives and saw how a young researcher works with our holdings of the feminist lawyer Jeanne Rouff (1928-2012).

A final look back: “Frauen*bewegung und Feminismus im Archiv: Archives on the move”

On November 19, 2022 CID took part in the celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the LGBTIQ+ CIGALE Centre. The contributions to the workshop “Nos histoires comptent (Our stories count)” and to the panel discussion “Mémoires des luttes homosexuelles et féministes (Memories of the homosexual and feminist struggles)“ in Luxembourg were published in the first issue of Le Cahier QGF (July 2023), which is available online free of charge (https://www.leqgf.lu/publications; published by the association Laboratoire d’Études Queer, sur le Genre et les Féminismes).

The last weekend in September was a fast-paced one. The 59th symposium of women’s/lesbian archives, libraries, and documentation centres was organised, this time by our Bremen colleagues from “Belladonna”. The theme of this year’s meeting was: Analogue & Digital– Lesbian/Women’s Archives and Libraries in Transformation. A particular highlight was the input on the future of libraries from Barbara Lison, who was President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and Director of Bremen City Library until 2023. She is in favour of a development that sees the library as a “third place”: as a social hub, as a place of discovery, learning, and inspiration; as a place of social, cultural, and digital participation.

We gratefully took up this line of thought when answering the survey of Luxembourg’s library landscape, which Henning Marmulla carried out in December on behalf of the Ministry of Culture. The CID’s questions and answers, which contain many ideas for the further development of our project, will soon be available on the CID website.

One observation, for example, concerns the fact that a growing proportion of the library’s work now takes place outside the physical premises and outside normal opening hours in the digital space: This ranges from research enquiries by email that go beyond the library’s own holdings and include links and e-documents on the web, to thematic literature, link lists, and the wide range of networking and cooperation work, to regular public relations work on the library’s own websites, blogs, and social media.

Since 2023, we have been using

• movement celebrations (e.g. Black History Month, International Day against Violence against Women, Lesbian Visibility Day, …),
• current discussions (e.g. ecofeminism, self-assertion, gender health, gender & finance and diversity on the net),
• and world events

as opportunities for our social media accounts to refer to books, podcasts, or online tools, or to provide food for thought with short insights and gender knowledge dissemination.

The further development of the meta-katalog.eu search portal operated by the i.d.a. network also serves this goal. In online working groups, we are further developing the search functions and data presentation and are looking for ways to integrate other European libraries into the catalogue.

The library reflects current (world) issues and those that will also concern the CID as a whole in 2023: There was a focus on acquisitions in the areas of culture, migration, health (gynaecology/menstruation /endometriosis), and sport (especially cycling), queer theory, sexualised and psychological violence, feminist foreign policy, literature by black feminists, ecology, and education.

Several book tables and themed literature lists, which can also be found on our homepage, accompanied CID activities and external events. The collaboration with the Casino bookClub on the topic “Entre fiction et réel : les livres d’Annie Ernaux et de Sophie Calle (Between fiction and reality: the books of Annie Ernaux and Sophie Calle)” is worth mentioning. Biographies, novels, and non-fiction books in the form of comics and graphic novels are very popular.

https://cid-fg.lu/bibliothek/literaturlisten/

And another forward-looking contribution to the question: How do we want to develop?

Educational projects have been an integral part of our activities since the CID was founded. In 2023, we stepped up our efforts once again to hire a gender educator and organise outreach workshops in Luxembourg City schools (which we succeeded in doing in Spring 2024 thanks to the generous support of the City of Luxembourg).

At the same time, we developed concepts in 2023 to redesign the children’s and youth library in a child-friendly way so that parents, educators, and our main target group–the children and young people themselves–can use the books and materials intuitively and with pleasure and enjoy spending time in the CID. Whether we succeed in this will be revealed in the 2024 report.

4. Political work

Projects 2023

Project: Structural sexism in Luxembourg’s cultural scene

Structural sexism? Not in our cultural scene!

Luxfilmfest 

As part of our cooperation with the Luxfilmfest, the film “Ladybitch” was shown at Utopia on 6 March 2023. Based on the story of a young theatre actress, the film shows the various facets of sexism towards women in the cultural sector. Following the screening, Isabel Spigarelli moderated a panel discussion with the two directors Marina Prados and Paula Knüpling.

Campaign for social media and cinema

In view of the precarious working conditions, female cultural workers are particularly at risk of being affected by structural discrimination. Fixed-term employment contracts, cronyism, and low wages foster relationships of dependency between the client and the artist.

To raise awareness of this issue, the CID launched a digital awareness campaign back in February, based on anonymous testimonies from female cultural professionals in Luxembourg. We contacted people from various cultural fields–theatre, film, music, dance–and asked them about their experiences with sexism in their professional activities.

When selecting the actresses for our campaign, we tried to reflect the diversity of Luxembourg’s cultural scene. The conscious decision not to use male actors is intended to illustrate that girls and women are primarily affected because structural sexism is based on a misogynistic attitude towards women. However, we would like to emphasise that we are fully aware that non-binary people and people from the LGBTIQ+ community are also affected by sexism, disadvantage, and discrimination. All people are affected by structural sexism because we live in misogynistic social structures. This means that boys and men also experience indirect devaluation due to sexist systems.

In addition to advertising this campaign on our social media, a related advert was broadcast in Ciné Utopia for one week in both March and November.

Lyrics “Wou ass d’Fra?”

Based on the statements collected from female cultural workers, the rapper Nicool wrote a song in which she addresses the structural dimension of disadvantage and gender-specific discrimination in the cultural sector. This song was premiered as part of the “Fête de la Musique” in Luxembourg City. The primary aim of this project was to sensitise the general public to the gender dimension of structural discrimination in the cultural sector. By spreading the song on social media, playing it at concerts and on the radio, we wanted to expand our target group and reach people who are not familiar with the CID. The music video for the song was released at the beginning of December.

In direct contact with cultural professionals and cultural institutions, we also wanted to take a look at the Luxembourg cultural scene from a gender-specific perspective and draw attention to structural inequalities. As part of this debate, in 2023, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and the City of Dudelange, we commissioned the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) to conduct a survey on gender representation in the programming of cultural institutions. The results of this study were published in 2024.

Project: National elections 2023–How feminist are Luxembourg’s parties?

Feminism is an election campaign issue

With a view to the 2023 super-election year, we contacted Luxembourg’s political parties back in 2022 and asked them 30 questions to find out how sensitive their political strategies are with regard to gender. We then analysed and evaluated the answers we received and published them in a table. In the interests of transparency, the unfiltered responses of all parties can be viewed on our website.

We then sent all candidate parties our demands for gender-sensitive and feminist policies in the hope that some of our points would be included in their election manifestos. After all, what is not in the election manifesto will not be included in a government programme, and what is not there will not be implemented.

Following the publication of the election manifestos, we compared their content with the respective answers to our questionnaire along with our demands. In some cases, the content of the programmes differed significantly from the parties’ original plans. We have also published this analysis on our website.

The highlight of the project was our Autumn event. On September 22nd, the CID organised a round table discussion with a total of 14 politicians at the Centre Culturel in Bonnevoie. One woman and one man represented each of the seven parties in parliament. We wanted to find out what ideas and strategies the individual parties had for implementing gender-sensitive policies based on the issues of housing shortages, violence, education, and care work. Some parties were tempted to mention interesting measures that were not included in their election programmes. The CID endeavoured to point out any inconsistencies to the audience. After the CID moderators Claire and Isabelle had asked the politicians their questions (and critical queries) for an hour, the audience was also allowed to ask their questions. The topics covered included feminist foreign policy, measures for the LGBTQ+ community, the regularisation of people without a residence permit, and working conditions in the low-wage sector, such as cleaning services.

It was obvious that gender equality is an issue that many voters care about and that simple phrases and declarations of intent are not enough to be feminist.

At the end of the event, we repeated our primary demand to the future government and parliament: gender mainstreaming must be enshrined as a fundamental guideline in the coalition agreement and be a basic principle of political action. It is not enough to have isolated ideas or to pursue an unstructured action plan. without clear timelines and targets the government is unable to fulfil the obligations arising from the Women’s Rights Convention, the Istanbul Convention, and our constitution, among others. The roundtable discussion was the final element of this year’s election project, alongside the evaluation of the questionnaire, our demands, and the election programme analysis.

Of course, we will not lose sight of the European elections in 2024. In light of rising anti-feminist and anti-democratic tendencies, we will be all the more committed to an equal and fair society.

A feminist future? We are working on it!

Feed your mind

One of the CID’s long-standing goals is to promote academic work and research in the field of gender studies and to make it visible and accessible to a wide audience. This is why we have launched the event series “Feed your mind” as a follow-up project to the “Lunch Knowledge Shots”.

We launched this new series of events on October 7, 2023. At an informal breakfast on Saturday morning, we invited three female researchers to present their scientific work in the field of gender research:

• Sylvie Kerger, PhD, Professor at the University of Luxembourg: “Les représentations du genre dans les manuels scolaires–cycle inférieur de l’enseignement secondaire” (in LU)
• Marion Dubois, Director of the organisation Passerell: “La ratification de la Convention d’Istanbul par le Luxembourg–étude des effets de la Convention sur les femmes exilées ” (in FR)
• Neel Chrillesen, journalist and psychologist: “Normalisation of violence during sex and of image-based sexual abuse in a sextech era.” (in EN)

The research results were presented in Luxembourgish, German and French. As part of this networking event, we placed particular emphasis on the exchange between the researchers and the audience. The discussion round that followed the presentations opened up the space for a constructive exchange of ideas.

5. Ongoing projects

Rallye citoyen

in cooperation with the VdL, the CGJL-Jugendrot, and the Centre LGBTIQ+ CIGALE 

In 2023, the CID once again took part in the “Rallye citoyen” organised by the National Youth Council of Luxembourg (CGJL-Jugendrot) together with CIGALE. The aim was to familiarise classes from various secondary schools with topics such as democracy, human rights, and volunteering in a fun way.

For the 2023 rally, CID collaborated with CIGALE over the course of five Fridays (end of May to mid-July). The rally alternated between the premises of CID and CIGALE. 330 students from more than a dozen secondary schools across the country took part (LCE, LTC, LCD, LRSL, LTETT, ECG, LGL, LHCE, LYMA).

The theme of the CID/CIGALE station was gender-related stereotypes. Pictures from school textbooks, adverts, and supermarket products had to be examined by the students for gender stereotypes. Two groups played against each other in a race to correctly identify the stereotype and win points.

Taking part in the Rallye Citoyen is an ideal opportunity to introduce pupils and teachers to the CID library and our activities and, above all, to reach very different milieus.

6. Public relations

The Press and Public Relations department is headed by Joëlle Schwinnen and Natalie von Laufenberg. While Joëlle is in charge of public relations, the website, and the newsletter, Natalie’s digital focus enhances the CID’s presence on social media with specially designed stories, posts, and reels.

1. Campaigns 2023

Féier keng op – dach net an eiser Kulturzeen! Or…? (Don’t make a big deal–not in our cultural scene! Or…?)

With a provocative clip shot by Roxanne Peguet, we drew attention to structural sexism in Luxembourg’s cultural scene in the first quarter of the year. Watch the video here

CID on the rails

A film about the CID and its activities was created together with Adventure Films. A short, 10-second trailer made it onto the screens of the LuxTram for a week. The advert ran from March We 7-13 and followers of the CID were rewarded with a pair of feminist socks if they captured the moment in their stories on social media and tagged the CID.

Feminist Feet

With sustainably produced and feminist socks, we aimed to attract new readers to the library in March. Every new enrolment came with a pair of socks for Feminist Feet to “mat de Féiss ze trëppelen” the patriarchy. For our loyal readers, there was of course also an opportunity to receive socks. And as requested, many users took photos of their socks, shared them on their social media, and tagged the CID.

Don’t be an asshole

Girls, women, and LGBTIQ+ persons are frequent victims of (sexual) harassment at festivals. This is why the CID has distributed postcards with tips on what can be done in the event of (sexual) harassment in time for the start of the festival season. Available in several languages on the website: https://cid-fg.lu/en/allgemein/dont-be-an-asshole/

2. Press 

Fräie Mikro + Carte Blanche

Isabelle Schmoetten could be heard on Radio 100.7 with four “Fräie Mikros”. Topics included gender mainstreaming, the value of unpaid care work, the so-called “certificats de virginité” or “virginity certificates”, and a plea for the introduction of the 32-hour week. Meanwhile, Claire Schadeck has made the “Carte Blanche” format on RTL her own. Following her first “Carte Blanche” in 2023 about structural sexism in Luxembourg’s cultural scene, she addresses the audience directly in her second episode and questions the public discourse we have around gender equality and discrimination and the aggression with which it is too often met.

Interviews

In 2023, over 30 interviews were conducted with CID employees. The focus was on our opinions and demands on sexism in the cultural sector, inclusive birth leave, the demands of the JIF, music and gender in Luxembourg, endometriosis, anti-feminism, feminist foreign policy, and our gender-sensitive view of the elections in Luxembourg. We were well represented in the Luxembourg media landscape with contributions on the radio (100.7, RTL Today, RTL Radio, Eldoradio, ARA City Radio), on television (RTL), in magazines (Télécran, Revue, Roux, ons stad), in daily and weekly newspapers (Luxembourg Times, Le Quotidien, Woxx, Wort, Tageblatt, Zeitung vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek), and in the online press (Journal, Delano).

www.cid-fg.lu

Our website with the different areas of our work.

expliCID

We (and hopefully you too) still love the printed form, as it offers a pleasant reading experience and allows us to reach a different audience than with our digital publications. The expliCID also serves as an archive and provides readers and ourselves with an overview of CID activities over the past few years. The expliCID was published four times in 2023.

Annual report

The compact overview of our activities has been met with a positive response for the third year in a row, which is why we have included the annual report in the permanent repertoire of CID publications.

Newsletter

1066 subscribers

Published 13 times and informed about our events and projects

Social Media

Our Instagram account has around 1900 followers–40% of whom are between 25-34 years old and more than 80% of whom are women*. On Facebook, around 2700 people follow the CID page, with a similar gender distribution, while both 25-34 year olds and 35-44-year-old users each make up a quarter of followers, and the remaining 50% is split between 45+ year-olds.

The accounts had their highest reach with posts about our Feminist Feet socks and our participation in the Fête de la Musique. The content about the election event attracted the most new visitors to our profiles, which enabled us to win them over as loyal followers. We also expanded the short-form video as a medium and regularly published new reels, which led to greater engagement with our target group.

In 2023, we increased the reach of our posts on both platforms by an average of 6 times, while we saw around twice as many interactions compared to the previous year.

7. Our organisation

1. Employees

The work areas of the CID were managed by the following employees:

• Library: Kathrin Eckhart and Tessy Schmitt
• Politics: Isabelle Schmoetten and Claire Schadeck
• Culture: Danielle Roster and Claire Schadeck
• Press and public relations: Joëlle Schwinnen and Natalie von Laufenberg
• Administration: Isabelle Schmoetten (management) and Jessica Sieradzki (administration and secretariat)
• Cleaner: Ermina Kozar

Joëlle Schwinnen handed over the PR baton to Natalie von Laufenberg on 31 December. After a sabbatical year, she will be taking her well-deserved retirement, but certainly not into retirement.

Danielle Roster left the CID in summer 2023 to pursue new challenges.

2. The Executive Board 

The Executive Board consists of the following members:

• Julia Maria Zimmermann (President)
• Tessie Jakobs (Vice President)
• Anne Müller (Treasurer)
• Colette Kutten (Secretary)
• Aldina Ganeto
• Marlène Kreins
• Joëlle Schranck nouvelle photo
• Cleo Thoma
• Lea Hilckmann nouvelle photo
• Tammy Schmit nouvelle photo
• Lena Batal pas de photo
• Neel Chrillesen nouvelle photo
• Nadia Zimmer pas de photo
• Maddy Mulheims-Hinkel nouvelle photo

3. Meetings @ CID

The Between the Lines book club, the English Reading Group and the French-speaking Cercle de Lecture meet regularly at the CID.

The Sweet Josephine asbl association supports the CID archive work by helping with processing, structuring and legal issues. They also invite people to their feminist book club at the CID.

4. Volunteers

In spring 2023, the CID was supported for two months by volunteer Aleksandra Lankamer. During her traineeship, she researched ecofeminism and wrote four instructive and critical articles on the topic.

The CID also organised its first “Call for Volunteers” in 2023 to build a network of potential volunteers. The feedback was extremely positive and two meetings (in spring and autumn) were held to exchange ideas over a leisurely breakfast.

8. Networks

CID Cooperations & Partners 2023

Library and archive

• EIGE
• ALBAD and VLA
• BNL and ANL
• CITIM
• ida (Association of German Women’s*, Lesbian and Gender Information Organisations) and DDF (German Digital Women’s Archive)
• Sweet Josephine
• Jonk BAD

Public organisations

• Ministère de l’Egalité des genres et de la Diversité (nouveau logo GOUV_Ministère_de_l’Égalité_des_genres_et_de_la_Diversité_Rouge)
• Ministère de la Culture
• Ville de Luxembourg
• Service Egalité des chances Dudelange
• Service Egalité des chances Bettembourg
• CET
• University of Luxembourg
• U.S. Embassy in Luxembourg

Civil society

• CESAS
• ITGL
• Youth red CGJL
• FINKAPE
• Centre fir political education
• Planning Familial
• JIF
• CNFL
• Friddens- a Solidarity Platform
• CIGALE

Culture

• Pierre Werner Institute
• Casino Display
• LuxFilmfest
• Cinémathèque
• MUGI
• TOL
• ASPRO
• neimënster
• LUGA

9. Become Active

Funds for feminism!

While the focus in 2023 was on Luxembourg politics with the municipal and parliamentary elections, in 2024 we will be focussing on topics relating to feminism, war and peace. As you can see, we are not running out of ideas. We need your help so that we can continue to make our mark on feminism in Luxembourg. The CID is financially supported by the Ministry for Equality between Women and Men (now Ministère de l’Egalité des genres et de la Diversité), the Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg. As a non-profit organisation, we still need donations to realise all our projects and to be able to function properly.

Under the motto “Fric fir de Feminismus”, we therefore ask you to support us financially. Most people donate a contribution of €20 or more – but we are happy to receive any amount! You can do this by making your contribution

• pay in cash at the library
• to the account CCPL LU 03 1111 1081 4284 0000
• or use Payconiq (QR code)

Donations to CID | Fraen an Gender are tax-deductible.

What do you “get out of it”?

Donors receive the expliCID four times a year free of charge (minimum amount €20). From 2024, expliCID will be further expanded by offering each article in at least two languages: The original language in print and an online translation.

How do I stay up to date feministically?

• The expliCID lands in your letterbox after a donation
• Subscribe to our newsletter: https://cid-fg.myflodesk.com/
• Follow us on FB www.facebook.com/cidfraenangender
• or IG www.instagram.com/cidfraenangender

We would also like to welcome you to the library. Drop by and borrow books, CDs and scores or browse through our magazines!