Jo Freeman aka Joreen (born August 26, 1945), is an American feminist, political scientist, writer and attorney.

Her mother Helen 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 Helen moved to Los Angeles, California where she taught junior high school until shortly before her death from emphysema.

[4] SLATE worked to abolish nuclear testing, to eliminate the university's ban on controversial speakers, and to improve undergraduate education at Cal.

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.

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.

The publicity it generated compelled the regents of the university to change the rules so that students could pursue political issues on campus.

[7][8] When the civil rights movement came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1963, it picketed local employers who didn't hire blacks.

Thirty years later a federal court order disclosed that these were provided to the newspaper by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.

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.

As the SCLC 's Chicago project faded out, Freeman went to work for a community newspaper, the West Side TORCH.

[2]: 104 In June 1967, Freeman attended a "free school" course on women at the University of Chicago led by Heather Booth[14] and Naomi Weisstein.

She invited them to organize a woman's workshop at the then-forthcoming National Conference of New Politics (NCNP), to be held over Labor Day weekend 1967 in Chicago.

A woman's caucus led by Freeman and Shulamith Firestone was formed at that conference and tried to present its own demands to the plenary session.

She later worked on California senator Alan Cranston's 1984 Presidential campaign and became active in Democratic Party politics in Brooklyn, New York.

The 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.

[19] A third article, Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood,[20] illuminated an aspect of the women's movement that many participants experienced but few wanted to discuss openly.

What she called the "younger branch" was started by women with experience in civil rights, anti-war, and New Left student activism.

[23] In this work, Freeman notes that women are labeled as a bitch in society based on three principles, their personality, orientation, and physicality.

[2] 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.