“Nor are we just passing through”: Muriel Naessens, Political Consistency, and Feminist Theatre of the Oppressed

Abstract

We must be as clear as possible about what we are defending. We are not, in fact, neutral, nor are we just passing through.—Muriel NaessensMuriel Naessens, feminist militant and Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner, died in France in February 2016, at the age of 67. After training with Theatre of the Oppressed founder Augusto Boal in his early days in France, Naessens founded the organization Féminisme-Enjeux, which “acts to prevent the oppression of women.” A feminist activist for over forty years, Naessens used Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) as one of her primary methods. She was a longtime activist with the French Family Planning Movement (MFPF), in many ways the French equivalent of the US organization Planned Parenthood. “As a member of Augusto's TO group in Paris and at the same time a militant in the Family Planning Organization,” wrote Naessens in 2006, “I was able to develop the use of TO on a regular but punctual basis within the MFPF, where it quickly found its rightful place on a national level.”