Jo Freeman
Encyclopedia
Jo Freeman is an American feminist, political scientist, writer and attorney. As a student at the University of California, Berkeley
in the 1960s, she became active in organizations working for civil liberties
and the civil rights movement. She went on to do voter registration
and community organization
in Alabama and Mississippi and was an early organizer of the women’s liberation movement. She authored several classic feminist articles as well as important papers on social movement
s and political parties
. She has also written extensively about women, particularly on law and public policy toward women and women in mainstream politics.
, in 1945. Her mother was from Hamilton, Alabama
, and had served during World War II as a first lieutenant in the Women's Army Corps
, stationed in England. Soon after Jo’s birth she moved to Los Angeles
California where she taught junior high school until shortly before her death. Freeman attended Birmingham High School, but graduated in the first class of Granada Hills High School in 1961. She received her B.A. with honors in political science from UC Berkeley in 1965. She began her graduate work in political science at the University of Chicago
in 1968 and completed her Ph.D.
in 1973. After four years of teaching at the State University of New York she went to Washington, DC as a Brookings Fellow and stayed another year as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. She entered New York University School of Law
in 1979 as a Root-Tilden Scholar and received her J.D.
degree in 1982. She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1983.
. SLATE worked to abolish nuclear testing, to eliminate the University’s ban on controversial speakers, and to improve undergraduate education at Cal. It developed a guide to classes and professors entitled the SLATE Supplement to the General Catalog, http://archive.slatearchives.org/gs/HASH331a.dir/doc.xml for which Freeman wrote reviews of professors and their courses. One of SLATE’s fundamental principles was that students should have the same rights to take stands on issues on campus that they had as citizens off campus. The University had restricted such activity since the 1930s. It became a major issue when the civil rights movement came to the Bay Area in the fall of 1963 because students wanted to support the movement on campus as well as off.
In the fall of 1964 the question was dramatized when student organizations set up tables on campus to solicit money and recruit students for off-campus political action in defiance of the ban. One person was arrested and several students were issued administrative citations. After a mass arrest was narrowly avoided by last minute negotiations with University president Clark Kerr
, the Free Speech Movement
(FSM) was formed by the student groups to continue the struggle. Freeman represented the University Young Democrats on the FSM executive committee. After two months of fruitless negotiations, Freeman was one of “the 800” students who were arrested for sitting in at the main administration building on December 2–3, 1964. This was the biggest mass arrest
in California history. The publicity it generated compelled the Regents of the University to change the rules so that students could pursue political issues on campus.
supermarket and Mel's Drive-In
to get them to sign hiring agreements. Success here was followed by unsuccessful negotiations with San Francisco’s most elegant hotels and several automobile dealers. Freeman was one of 167 demonstrators arrested at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel http://www.sfpalace.com/History in March 1964, and one of 226 arrested at the Cadillac
agency in April. She was acquitted in her first trial and convicted in her second, resulting in a fifteen-day jail sentence. Her second trial kept her from attending the 1964 Freedom Summer
project in Mississippi. After it ended she hitchhiked http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/mfdp64.html to the 1964 Democratic National Convention
in August in Atlantic City, New Jersey
to support the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
’s petition to be seated in place of the all-white regular Mississippi delegation.
Following graduation from UC Berkeley, Freeman joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
's (SCLC) summer project, SCOPE (Southern Community Organization and Political Education). When the summer was over, she joined the SCLC staff as a field worker. For the next year she did voter registration in Alabama and Mississippi, spending a few days in jail in both states. In August 1966, when she was working in Grenada, Mississippi
, the Jackson Daily News published an expose of her work as a “professional agitator” on its editorial page, implying that she was a communist sympathizer. http://www.jofreeman.com/sixtiesprotest/clipping.htm Accompanied by five photographs, including one taken at Cal during the FSM, this made her a potential target for Mississippi death squads. Thirty years later a federal court order disclosed that these were provided to the newspaper by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
. An informant had documented Freeman’s participation in the FSM and recognized her in Grenada. Concerned for her safety, SCLC sent Freeman back to Atlanta, where she worked in the main office and also as Coretta Scott King
’s assistant for six weeks. In October she was sent to work with SCLC’s Chicago project. As the SCLC ‘s Chicago project faded out, Freeman went to work for a community newspaper, the West Side TORCH. When this job ended she tried to find jobs as a journalist and photographer in Chicago, where she was told that girls can't cover riots. Eventually she found work as a re-write editor for a trade magazine, later becoming a freelance writer.
. She invited them to organize a woman’s workshop at the forthcoming National Conference of New Politics (NCNP), to be held over Labor Day weekend 1967 in Chicago. At that conference women were outraged when they were denied an opportunity to present a resolution to the plenary developed by the workshop. Shulamith Firestone
was patted on the head by the NCNP chairman and told that “we have more important things to do.” Freeman and Firestone called a meeting of the women who had been at the “free school” course and the women’s workshop; this became the first Chicago women’s liberation group. It was known as the Westside group because it met weekly in Freeman’s apartment on Chicago’s west side. After a few months Freeman started a newsletter which she called Voice of the women’s liberation movement. It circulated all over the country (and in a few foreign countries), giving the new movement its name. Many of the women in the Westside group went on to start other feminist organizations, including the Chicago Women's Liberation Union
.
In the fall of 1968 Freeman enrolled in graduate school in political science at the University of Chicago. However, she took courses outside the discipline which would give her an opportunity to explore the research on women, sex roles and related topics. Most of the term papers she wrote were later published in various magazines and in college textbooks. When consciousness about women at the University was raised by a sit-in prompted by the firing of a popular female professor, Freeman led efforts to examine women’s experiences at the University and in academia. These included teaching a “free course” on the legal and economic position of women early in 1969, chairing the student subcommittee of the new Committee on University Women, and organizing a major campus conference on women the following fall.
At the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association
(APSA) in 1969, she helped to found the Women’s Caucus for Political Science, eventually serving as its treasurer for one year. She also served on APSA’s Committee on the Status of Women.
As a result of her publications, Freeman was invited to speak at many other colleges and universities, mostly in the Midwest. She spent the summers of 1970 and 1971 hitchhiking through Europe distributing feminist literature. Her lecture at the University of Oslo
in 1970 is credited for sparking its first new feminist group. The literature she distributed was also a boon to feminists in the Netherlands
.
Although Freeman had not been active in Democratic Party
politics since leaving California in 1965 (except for a brief stint on Eugene McCarthy
’s 1968 Presidential campaign), she ran for delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention
in order to put Shirley Chisholm
’s name on the ballot. She came in ninth out of 24 candidates in Chicago's first district and attended the convention as an alternate with the Chicago Challenge Delegation that unseated Mayor Daley's hand-picked slate. She later worked on California Senator Alan Cranston
's 1984 Presidential campaign and became active in Democratic Party politics in Brooklyn, New York.
Freeman wrote four classic feminist papers under her movement name “Joreen”, which analyzed her experiences in the women’s liberation movement. The most widely known is The Tyranny of Structurelessness
, which argued there is no such thing as a structureless group; power is simply disguised and hidden when structure is unacknowledged. All groups and organizations need clear lines of responsibility for democratic accountability, a notion that underlies the theory of democratic structuring
. Her 1969 BITCH Manifesto is considered an early example of language reclamation by a social movement, as well as a celebration of non-traditional gender roles. A third article, Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood, illuminated an aspect of the women’s movement that many participants experienced but few wanted to discuss openly. The 51 Percent Minority Group: A Statistical Essay appeared in Sisterhood is Powerful
, edited by Robin Morgan
.
Freeman’s 1973 dissertation analyzed the two branches of the women’s movement, arguing that they were separated more by generation and experience than by ideology. What she called the “younger branch” was started by women with experience in civil rights, anti-war, and New Left student activism. The “older branch” was founded by women who had been members of or worked with the President's Commission on the Status of Women
and related state Commissions. The latter branch gave rise to such organizations as the National Organization for Women
(NOW) and the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL). http://www.answers.com/topic/women-s-equity-action-league The resulting book, The Politics of Women’s Liberation, was published in 1975 and won the APSA's prize for the best scholarly work on women in politics.
and then as an APSA Congressional Fellow. http://www.apsanet.org/section_165.cfm With an increasing interest in public policy, and unable to find a full-time appointment in academia, Freeman decided to study law after she was offered a Root-Tilden Scholarship http://www.law.nyu.edu/depts/publicinterest/scholarships/rtk.html at New York University School of Law. She received a J.D. degree in 1982 and was admitted to the New York State Bar the next year. She maintained a private practice in Brooklyn, New York for many years, serving as counsel to women running for political offices and to pro-choice demonstrators.
Freeman has published 11 books and hundreds of articles. Most are on some aspect of women or feminism, but she also writes about social movements and political parties. Two of these are considered classics: “On the Origins of Social Movements” and “The Political Culture of the Democratic and Republican Parties.” Women: A Feminist Perspective went into five editions and for many years was the leading introductory women’s studies textbook. A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics (2000) also won a prize for scholarship given at the APSA.
She has continued to attend the major party political conventions, but as a journalist. Many of her articles are posted to her webpage, as are some of her photographs of political events and a small selection from her button collection.
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in the 1960s, she became active in organizations working for civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
and the civil rights movement. She went on to do voter registration
Voter registration
Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens and residents to check in with some central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive.-Centralized/compulsory vs...
and community organization
Community organization
Community organizations are civil society non-profits that operate within a single local community. They are essentially a subset of the wider group of nonprofits. Like other nonprofits they are often run on a voluntary basis and are self funded...
in Alabama and Mississippi and was an early organizer of the women’s liberation movement. She authored several classic feminist articles as well as important papers on social movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
s and political parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
. She has also written extensively about women, particularly on law and public policy toward women and women in mainstream politics.
Early life and education
Jo Freeman was born in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, in 1945. Her mother was from Hamilton, Alabama
Hamilton, Alabama
Hamilton is a city in Marion County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 6,786. The city is the county seat of Marion County.-Geography:Hamilton is located at , along the Buttahatchee River....
, and had served during World War II as a first lieutenant in the Women's Army Corps
Women's Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps was the women's branch of the US Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to full status as the WAC in 1943...
, stationed in England. Soon after Jo’s birth she moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
California where she taught junior high school until shortly before her death. Freeman attended Birmingham High School, but graduated in the first class of Granada Hills High School in 1961. She received her B.A. with honors in political science from UC Berkeley in 1965. She began her graduate work in political science at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1968 and completed her Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1973. After four years of teaching at the State University of New York she went to Washington, DC as a Brookings Fellow and stayed another year as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. She entered New York University School of Law
New York University School of Law
The New York University School of Law is the law school of New York University. Established in 1835, the school offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in law, and is located in Greenwich Village, in the New York City borough of Manhattan....
in 1979 as a Root-Tilden Scholar and received her J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
degree in 1982. She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1983.
Student activist at Berkeley
At Berkeley Freeman was active in the University Young Democrats and the campus political party, SLATESLATE
SLATE, a pioneer organization of the New Left and precursor of the Free Speech Movement, was a campus political party at the University of California, Berkeley from 1958 to 1966.-Origins:...
. SLATE worked to abolish nuclear testing, to eliminate the University’s ban on controversial speakers, and to improve undergraduate education at Cal. It developed a guide to classes and professors entitled the SLATE Supplement to the General Catalog, http://archive.slatearchives.org/gs/HASH331a.dir/doc.xml for which Freeman wrote reviews of professors and their courses. One of SLATE’s fundamental principles was that students should have the same rights to take stands on issues on campus that they had as citizens off campus. The University had restricted such activity since the 1930s. It became a major issue when the civil rights movement came to the Bay Area in the fall of 1963 because students wanted to support the movement on campus as well as off.
In the fall of 1964 the question was dramatized when student organizations set up tables on campus to solicit money and recruit students for off-campus political action in defiance of the ban. One person was arrested and several students were issued administrative citations. After a mass arrest was narrowly avoided by last minute negotiations with University president Clark Kerr
Clark Kerr
Clark Kerr was an American professor of economics and academic administrator. He was the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and twelfth president of the University of California.- Early years :...
, the Free Speech Movement
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
(FSM) was formed by the student groups to continue the struggle. Freeman represented the University Young Democrats on the FSM executive committee. After two months of fruitless negotiations, Freeman was one of “the 800” students who were arrested for sitting in at the main administration building on December 2–3, 1964. This was the biggest mass arrest
Mass arrest
A mass arrest occurs when the police apprehend large numbers of suspects at once. This sometimes occurs at illegal protests. Some mass arrests are also used in an effort combat gang activity. This is sometimes controversial, and lawsuits sometimes result...
in California history. The publicity it generated compelled the Regents of the University to change the rules so that students could pursue political issues on campus.
Civil rights activist
When the civil rights movement came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1963, it picketed local employers who didn’t hire blacks. Demonstrations were organized at LuckyLucky Stores
Lucky Stores is an American supermarket chain founded in Alameda County, California in 1935. Lucky is currently operated by SuperValu in Southern California and Nevada and by Save Mart in Northern California and Nevada.In 1998, Lucky's parent company, American Stores, was taken over by Albertsons,...
supermarket and Mel's Drive-In
Mel's Drive-In
Mel's Drive-In is an American restaurant chain founded in 1947 by Mel Weiss and Harold Dobbs in San Francisco, California....
to get them to sign hiring agreements. Success here was followed by unsuccessful negotiations with San Francisco’s most elegant hotels and several automobile dealers. Freeman was one of 167 demonstrators arrested at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel http://www.sfpalace.com/History in March 1964, and one of 226 arrested at the Cadillac
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
agency in April. She was acquitted in her first trial and convicted in her second, resulting in a fifteen-day jail sentence. Her second trial kept her from attending the 1964 Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...
project in Mississippi. After it ended she hitchhiked http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/mfdp64.html to the 1964 Democratic National Convention
1964 Democratic National Convention
The 1964 Democratic National Convention was the 1964 presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party. It took place at the Atlantic City Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey from August 24 to 27, 1964. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson -- who had been Vice President under...
in August in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
to support the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was an American political party created in the state of Mississippi in 1964, during the civil rights movement...
’s petition to be seated in place of the all-white regular Mississippi delegation.
Following graduation from UC Berkeley, Freeman joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
's (SCLC) summer project, SCOPE (Southern Community Organization and Political Education). When the summer was over, she joined the SCLC staff as a field worker. For the next year she did voter registration in Alabama and Mississippi, spending a few days in jail in both states. In August 1966, when she was working in Grenada, Mississippi
Grenada, Mississippi
Grenada is a city in Grenada County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 14,879 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Grenada County.-History:...
, the Jackson Daily News published an expose of her work as a “professional agitator” on its editorial page, implying that she was a communist sympathizer. http://www.jofreeman.com/sixtiesprotest/clipping.htm Accompanied by five photographs, including one taken at Cal during the FSM, this made her a potential target for Mississippi death squads. Thirty years later a federal court order disclosed that these were provided to the newspaper by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency directed by the governor of Mississippi that existed from 1956 to 1977, also known as the Sov-Com...
. An informant had documented Freeman’s participation in the FSM and recognized her in Grenada. Concerned for her safety, SCLC sent Freeman back to Atlanta, where she worked in the main office and also as Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.Mrs...
’s assistant for six weeks. In October she was sent to work with SCLC’s Chicago project. As the SCLC ‘s Chicago project faded out, Freeman went to work for a community newspaper, the West Side TORCH. When this job ended she tried to find jobs as a journalist and photographer in Chicago, where she was told that girls can't cover riots. Eventually she found work as a re-write editor for a trade magazine, later becoming a freelance writer.
Women’s liberation activist and author
In June 1967 Freeman attended a “free school’” course on women at the University of Chicago led by Heather Booth http://jwa.org/feminism/_html/JWA004.htm and Naomi WeissteinNaomi Weisstein
Naomi Weisstein is the daughter of Mary Wenk and Samuel Weisstein. She is a Professor of Psychology, neuroscientist, and author. She graduated from Wellesley College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1961 and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1964. In 1964 she took a post-doctoral fellowship at the...
. She invited them to organize a woman’s workshop at the forthcoming National Conference of New Politics (NCNP), to be held over Labor Day weekend 1967 in Chicago. At that conference women were outraged when they were denied an opportunity to present a resolution to the plenary developed by the workshop. Shulamith Firestone
Shulamith Firestone
Shulamith Firestone , is a Jewish, Canadian-born feminist. She was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism, having been a founding member of the New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists...
was patted on the head by the NCNP chairman and told that “we have more important things to do.” Freeman and Firestone called a meeting of the women who had been at the “free school” course and the women’s workshop; this became the first Chicago women’s liberation group. It was known as the Westside group because it met weekly in Freeman’s apartment on Chicago’s west side. After a few months Freeman started a newsletter which she called Voice of the women’s liberation movement. It circulated all over the country (and in a few foreign countries), giving the new movement its name. Many of the women in the Westside group went on to start other feminist organizations, including the Chicago Women's Liberation Union
Chicago Women's Liberation Union
The Chicago Women's Liberation Union was a women's liberation organization based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The organization served as an umbrella organization for numerous groups who worked within communities nationwide to bring awareness, programming and opportunities to women...
.
In the fall of 1968 Freeman enrolled in graduate school in political science at the University of Chicago. However, she took courses outside the discipline which would give her an opportunity to explore the research on women, sex roles and related topics. Most of the term papers she wrote were later published in various magazines and in college textbooks. When consciousness about women at the University was raised by a sit-in prompted by the firing of a popular female professor, Freeman led efforts to examine women’s experiences at the University and in academia. These included teaching a “free course” on the legal and economic position of women early in 1969, chairing the student subcommittee of the new Committee on University Women, and organizing a major campus conference on women the following fall.
At the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association
American Political Science Association
The American Political Science Association is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903, it publishes three academic journals...
(APSA) in 1969, she helped to found the Women’s Caucus for Political Science, eventually serving as its treasurer for one year. She also served on APSA’s Committee on the Status of Women.
As a result of her publications, Freeman was invited to speak at many other colleges and universities, mostly in the Midwest. She spent the summers of 1970 and 1971 hitchhiking through Europe distributing feminist literature. Her lecture at the University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
in 1970 is credited for sparking its first new feminist group. The literature she distributed was also a boon to feminists in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Although Freeman had not been active in Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politics since leaving California in 1965 (except for a brief stint on Eugene McCarthy
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...
’s 1968 Presidential campaign), she ran for delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention
1972 Democratic National Convention
The 1972 Democratic National Convention was the presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party for the 1972 presidential election. It was held at Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida on July 10–13, 1972....
in order to put Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to Congress...
’s name on the ballot. She came in ninth out of 24 candidates in Chicago's first district and attended the convention as an alternate with the Chicago Challenge Delegation that unseated Mayor Daley's hand-picked slate. She later worked on California Senator Alan Cranston
Alan Cranston
Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.-Education:Cranston earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star...
's 1984 Presidential campaign and became active in Democratic Party politics in Brooklyn, New York.
Freeman wrote four classic feminist papers under her movement name “Joreen”, which analyzed her experiences in the women’s liberation movement. The most widely known is The Tyranny of Structurelessness
The Tyranny of Structurelessness
"The Tyranny of Structurelessness" is an influential essay by American feminist Jo Freeman inspired by her experiences in the 1970s women's liberation movement concerning power relations within radical feminist collectives....
, which argued there is no such thing as a structureless group; power is simply disguised and hidden when structure is unacknowledged. All groups and organizations need clear lines of responsibility for democratic accountability, a notion that underlies the theory of democratic structuring
Democratic structuring
The principles of democratic structuring were defined by Jo Freeman in "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", first delivered as a talk in 1970, later published in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology in 1972. They were influential in power network theories, especially those challenging a single command...
. Her 1969 BITCH Manifesto is considered an early example of language reclamation by a social movement, as well as a celebration of non-traditional gender roles. A third article, Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood, illuminated an aspect of the women’s movement that many participants experienced but few wanted to discuss openly. The 51 Percent Minority Group: A Statistical Essay appeared in Sisterhood is Powerful
Sisterhood is Powerful
Sisterhood Is Powerful , published in 1970, was one of the first widely available anthologies of early Second Wave radical feminist writings...
, edited by Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
.
Freeman’s 1973 dissertation analyzed the two branches of the women’s movement, arguing that they were separated more by generation and experience than by ideology. What she called the “younger branch” was started by women with experience in civil rights, anti-war, and New Left student activism. The “older branch” was founded by women who had been members of or worked with the President's Commission on the Status of Women
Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning the status of women. It was created by John F. Kennedy's executive order 10980 signed December 14, 1961.-Background:...
and related state Commissions. The latter branch gave rise to such organizations as the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
(NOW) and the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL). http://www.answers.com/topic/women-s-equity-action-league The resulting book, The Politics of Women’s Liberation, was published in 1975 and won the APSA's prize for the best scholarly work on women in politics.
Career in law and political science
After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1973, Freeman taught for four years at the State University of New York. She then spent two years in Washington, DC as a fellow at the Brookings InstitutionBrookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...
and then as an APSA Congressional Fellow. http://www.apsanet.org/section_165.cfm With an increasing interest in public policy, and unable to find a full-time appointment in academia, Freeman decided to study law after she was offered a Root-Tilden Scholarship http://www.law.nyu.edu/depts/publicinterest/scholarships/rtk.html at New York University School of Law. She received a J.D. degree in 1982 and was admitted to the New York State Bar the next year. She maintained a private practice in Brooklyn, New York for many years, serving as counsel to women running for political offices and to pro-choice demonstrators.
Freeman has published 11 books and hundreds of articles. Most are on some aspect of women or feminism, but she also writes about social movements and political parties. Two of these are considered classics: “On the Origins of Social Movements” and “The Political Culture of the Democratic and Republican Parties.” Women: A Feminist Perspective went into five editions and for many years was the leading introductory women’s studies textbook. A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics (2000) also won a prize for scholarship given at the APSA.
She has continued to attend the major party political conventions, but as a journalist. Many of her articles are posted to her webpage, as are some of her photographs of political events and a small selection from her button collection.
Articles by Joreen
- "The 51 Percent Minority Group: A Statistical Essay," The Voice of The Women's Liberation Movement; rpt. in Sisterhood is PowerfulSisterhood is PowerfulSisterhood Is Powerful , published in 1970, was one of the first widely available anthologies of early Second Wave radical feminist writings...
: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Liberation Movement, ed. Robin MorganRobin MorganRobin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
(N.Y.: Random House, 1970), pp. 37–46 - "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," The Second Wave, Vol. 2. No. 1, 1972, p. 20; Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Vol. 17, 1972–73, pp. 151–165. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
- "The BITCH Manifesto," Notes from the Second Year, ed. by Shulamith FirestoneShulamith FirestoneShulamith Firestone , is a Jewish, Canadian-born feminist. She was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism, having been a founding member of the New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists...
and Anne KoedtAnne KoedtAnne Koedt is a United States radical feminist and NY based author of The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm, 1970, the classic feminist work on women's sexuality...
, 1970. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/bitch.htm - "Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood," Ms., April 1976, pp. 49–51, 92–98. http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm
Articles by Jo Freeman
- "The Origins of the Women's Liberation Movement," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 4, January 1973, pp. 792–811
- "On the Origins of Social Movements," in Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, ed. by Jo Freeman (New York: Longman, 1983), pp. 8–30
- "The Political Culture of the Democratic and Republican Parties," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 101, No. 3, Fall 1986, pp. 327–356
- Articles by Jo Freeman at Senior Women Web
Books
- The Politics of Women's Liberation: A Case Study of an Emerging Social Movement and Its Relation to the Policy Process (Longman, 1975; iUniverse, 2000). ISBN 978-0595088997
- Women: A Feminist Perspective, editor (Mayfield, 1975, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1995). ISBN 1-55934-111-4
- Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, editor (Longman, 1983). ISBN 0-582-28091-5
- Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties, editor with Victoria Johnson (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). ISBN 0-8476-8747-3
- A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). ISBN 0-8476-9804-1
- At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Education of an Activist, 1961–1965 (Indiana University Press, 2004). ISBN 0-253-34283-X
- We Will Be Heard: Women's Struggles for Political Power in the United States (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). ISBN 978-0742556089