Evaluation paper Profeminist Congress 2025

The pro-feminist congress took place in Berlin from September 26th to 28th, 2025. 18 events and 5 workshops took place over the weekend. There was child care, an awareness structure, a cake buffet, warm lunch, a café bar, a book table and information tables from various initiatives and organizations, as well as plenty of space for exchange and getting together. We, the preparatory group, are trying to do an evaluation here.

“It's good that there was a congress!“

It is very positive that around 300 people came to the congress and most of the events were more than full. Many participants came from other cities and stayed the whole weekend. (However, we missed some Berlin faces). The social climate was surprisingly good during the days of the congress and by the second day of the congress many people were already more acquainted with one another. This has also had a positive effect on how we interact with each other, especially at events on the topic of sexual violence. Many participants got into conversation, exchanged contacts and networked. Some women and trans* people reported to us that they felt comfortable despite the larger proportion of men. In general, we had the feeling that the participants brought their own topics with them and were very interested in exchange and discussion. The great willingness to help should also be emphasized - that impressed us very much. Thank you again! Without you helping, none of this would have worked.

If we see the congress as a start, we are very satisfied with it.

“There were too few of us in the preparation group.“

The majority of us were at our limits on the days of the congress. That means we got (almost) everything done, but at the same time we didn't get much out of the congress ourselves. Nevertheless, we as a preparation group are happy that we worked well together as a group despite the excitement, stress and a lot of work.

Since we (five of us) saw ourselves as having the main responsibility and also partly as speakers and moderators, the feeling of over-representation gnaws at us at the same time.With regard to this, we would also like to engage in more conversation and exchange for the future.It would have been good if the groups we asked had taken on tasks on a binding basis.

AlsoWith regard to an upcoming congress, we find it a shame thatsI have not reported any city or context that has promised to plan a pro-feminist congress in 2026. We believe in personal responsibility and self-organization and had hoped that we wouldwith the Congress“S"Get things rolling" and others decide to continue rolling. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

“I took part in this congress because I would have liked to go to this congress myself.ButI hadte didn't feel like I went to the congress. I wasthat isWe were there the whole time, but didn't have the time or the brain to take anything with us - we simply had too many tasks."

“I was stressed about raising awareness in an emergency.“

Once again we realized that it is really important to find a committed awareness team as early as possible. We had this on our list early on and were in discussions with an organized awareness structure. However, this was eliminated after a failed joint workshop. The points of contention can perhaps best be summarized as follows: Their awareness approach had little to do with our congress, there were power imbalances within the group that upset us, and an understanding of organization and responsibility in which we saw no commonality with our horizontal understanding. So it's worth having a plan or people B and C in your pocket. There were awareness people throughout the congress, but only because thankfully(!) people jumped in spontaneously. There is still room for improvement here to ensure stable awareness and to allay our worries and fears about personnel and quality gaps.

"I'm still upset that our awareness planning failed at the first attempt. That gave me fear and I thought, hopefully it will still work."

“We didn't give ourselves enough time, neither in the preparation nor in the debriefing of the focus group meetings.“

We are five white Cis men, as we know, we lack perspectives and experiences regarding gender-based and racial discrimination. In order to fill gaps in content during preparation and to receive constructive criticism of planned congress program items, we invited an external focus group. The focus group consisted of non-male queer and trans*feminist friends and activists and was invited to dinner by us twice in advance. During the meetings, our planned program items, our thoughts and questions about them were presented and then discussed together. Overall it worked well, but there is room for improvement in the details.

During the conference evaluation, we discussed for a long time and not quite conclusively how we dealt with criticism from the focus group and from the opening event.

At the opening event, participants criticized the lack of topics in the congress program. On the one hand, there are too few events on the topic of non-binary and trans*. On the other hand, there are too few program items on masculinity and racialization. Both points of criticism were already discussed at the focus group meetings.

For some of us, other topics were more important, for some the criticism from the focus group was not entirely clear, for others personal (dis)sympathy played a role, but we can say for sure and that is unfortunately not surprising that our positioning fell on our feet here. When it comes to the topics of trans* and migrant masculinity, we lacked concrete questions with which to organize events. In addition, most of the contributors and workshop participants came from our extended environment and it is clear here (once again) that we do not have enough contacts or know people who work politically on these topic areas. We will take with us the question of why other topics were more important or, to put it bluntly, why the topic of trans* and migrant masculinity(s) was not important enough. In addition, personal (dis)sympathies should actually play no role in the (non)implementation of (queer) feminist demands and criticisms. The meaning. that the focus group has for us needs to be sharpened. Although she “delivered”, our implementation of her suggestions and criticisms requires improvement on our part.

“I think we acted a little bit from our island and docked little with other structures.”

“I didn’t like that: the press!”

We had previously published our wishes for the press in dealing with the congress on the congress website. Two of us were available and responsible for the press throughout the weekend and even before. A journalist had asked in advance to be able to accompany the entire congress and, after consultation, this happened. We are very pleased with the resulting article. This is, for us, an important perspective on the congress. Thanks again to Lilli Sauer (can be read in Boycott Magazine #4)! Elsewhere, communication with a journalist did not work or could not take place. This led to conflicts at the congress, especially between congress participants and the journalist. The conflict would be reported in the press and we would respond with a counter statement. We won't go into detail here. Just this much: Even after a personal conversation, weeks after the congress, with the responsible editor-in-chief but unfortunately without the journalist, there was no reconciliation or clarification of the conflict. We think that's a shame. But this also means that we are currently assuming that we will significantly limit access for journalists at future congresses.

What we will take with us next time 

On the one hand, there is still a good feeling that if we give priority to a “project”, a congress organization can be implemented even with a few people. At the same time, it became clear that we lacked capacity in many areas. We would have liked to have had more time to engage more intensively with each other as an organizing group, but also with everyone else at the congress. This also means creating a space during the congress in which everyone can gather together what happened in the respective events and what discussions took place. We believe that this will also help create an atmosphere from which sustainable networks can emerge and, above all, the respective inputs can be linked with one another.

For this, but also independently of this, longer breaks between events are required. Sometimes we rushed from one event to the next without having time for the necessary hallway conversations. In general, we need to keep a better eye on the different time resources. For those who came from other cities, it was unfortunate not to be able to attend some of the events on Sunday as they had to catch their train.

Finally, it could be said that our ability to deal with criticism can be improved. It was difficult for us to accept criticism around the congress and at the congress itself without immediately coming up with explanations as to why and why we were doing it this way and that. One of the reasons is that we are overwhelmed with organization - but certainly not only. We would also like to discuss again why we decided to be a purely cis-male organizational group. Even if there are good reasons for this (personal responsibility, no “alibis”, etc.), there is also a lot to be said against it (danger of male cronyism, isolation, narrow perspectives, etc.) and it seems to us that this has partly fallen on our feet.

The political becomes personal

This also includes the idea that we as an organizational group have remained unclear about who and what we want to be for each other. Specifically, this means whether we were purely a working group (which was quite nice and caring towards each other during our existence) or whether social relationships should arise from this or we want that. Not having addressed this during the time of our existence leaves the stale impression of having fallen for the patriarchal division between the political and social/private spheres (which not only cis men can sing a song about) and of being inattentive to it as cis men (which non-cis men can also sing a song about). Instead, we could have seen and used the opportunity and possibility of a shared social future - or at least negotiated this possibility. This has left an emotional hole in those of us who aren't already in social contact with most others. Of course, the question of “aftercare” of group work also plays into this.

As you can see, there is a lot that needs to be reflected on and that can help us (all) to better design future events and, if necessary, a pro-feminist congress in 2027 and to continue to weave together a common thread. We would like to once again thank all the people who helped, supported, focused, presented and visited and are very excited to see what is to come.

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