Feminist Egalitarianism is a particularly important component of Global Egalitarianism because it expands the meaning of equality beyond class or wealth to include gender, power, autonomy, care, and everyday social relationships.
Feminist Egalitarianism → Global Egalitarianism
The central feminist insight is that a society cannot genuinely be egalitarian if roughly half of humanity is systematically placed in subordinate positions.
It contributes several important principles:
Equal human status: Women and men—and people of all gender identities—should have equal social, political, economic, and legal status.
Equal political power: Women should participate equally in governing institutions and collective decision-making.
Economic equality: Feminist economics examines unequal wages, property ownership, access to employment, and economic dependence.
Recognition of unpaid labor: Childcare, eldercare, household work, and other forms of care are essential social labor even when they aren't paid.
Bodily autonomy: Equality requires people to have meaningful control over their own bodies and lives.
Opposition to patriarchy: Feminist theory examines systems in which authority and resources are systematically concentrated in men's hands.
Intersectionality: Gender inequality interacts with class, race, colonialism, disability, sexuality, and other forms of inequality. This is particularly important for a global egalitarian theory.
Transformation of everyday relationships: Equality isn't only a matter of laws and governments; it also concerns families, workplaces, communities, education, and interpersonal relationships.
The connection to Global Egalitarianism
I'd frame the progression this way:
Humanism
→ Every human being has equal moral worth.
Socialism
→ Economic resources and economic power should be more equally distributed.
Anarchism
→ People should be free from relations of domination.
Feminism
→ Gender cannot be a basis for domination or unequal power.
Global Egalitarianism
→ No person's social position—gender, class, nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, or other status—should determine their fundamental power, dignity, opportunities, or access to the necessities of life.
There are several feminist traditions worth distinguishing
For your project, I wouldn't treat "feminism" as a single ideology. There are several particularly relevant strands:
Liberal feminism — equal legal and political rights
Socialist feminism — connections between patriarchy, capitalism, class and economic dependence
Anarchist feminism — opposition to patriarchy and other hierarchical forms of domination
Radical feminism — analysis of patriarchy and gendered power structures
Black feminism — intersection of gender, race, class and other systems of power
Ecofeminism — connections between domination of women and domination/exploitation of nature
Indigenous feminisms — gender equality examined alongside colonialism, community, land and Indigenous sovereignty
African feminisms — diverse African approaches emphasizing gender, colonialism, community, economic independence and women's agency
For Global Egalitarianism, the last several are particularly valuable because they prevent the concept of equality from becoming simply a Western, middle-class conception of equality between men and women.
One especially important contribution: intersectionality
The concept associated particularly with Kimberlé Crenshaw is extremely useful here.
Suppose you compare:
a wealthy woman and a poor woman
a European woman and an African woman
an urban woman and a rural woman.
"Women" are not a single homogeneous social category. Gender interacts with other structures of power.
This is important for your Global qualifier. A genuinely global egalitarianism would need to ask not only:
"Are women equal to men?"
but also:
"Which women? Equal in what respect? Under what economic, cultural, racial, colonial, and political circumstances?"
That makes Feminist Egalitarianism a useful corrective to an overly simple universalism.
And feminism connects surprisingly well with your anarchist/social-ecology interests
There is a natural conceptual chain:
Anarchism: eliminate domination
↓
Feminism: eliminate patriarchal domination
↓
Social Ecology: eliminate social hierarchies that underpin domination of people and nature
↓
Global Egalitarianism: extend the anti-domination principle across humanity.
So if you're constructing a 25-item list of ethical/intellectual traditions for Global Egalitarianism, I would definitely retain Feminism as a major category rather than treating it as a minor subtopic.
The feminist contribution can be summarized quite simply:
Equality isn't genuine if it exists in public institutions while hierarchy persists in the family, workplace, economy, or intimate life.
That is a significant expansion of what Global Egalitarianism means.
Yes. And because you're using Feminist Egalitarianism as one of the intellectual streams feeding Global Egalitarianism, I would make the list deliberately international and multi-tradition, rather than simply listing famous Western feminists.
A useful core group
Thinker
Contribution relevant to Global Egalitarianism
Mary Wollstonecraft
Equal education, rationality, citizenship and human rights for women
John Stuart Mill & Harriet Taylor Mill
Legal, political and social equality between women and men
Sojourner Truth
Race + gender + abolition; equality in lived experience
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women's political and civic equality
Simone de Beauvoir
Gender as a socially constructed condition; freedom and liberation
Emma Goldman
Anarchism + feminism + individual freedom
Rosa Luxemburg
Socialist equality and women's emancipation
Alexandra Kollontai
Socialist feminism, communal care and transformation of family relations
Virginia Woolf
Women's independence, education and economic autonomy
bell hooks
Feminism as liberation from interconnected systems of domination
Angela Davis
Feminism + socialism + race + class + prison abolition
Audre Lorde
Difference, intersectionality, race, sexuality and solidarity
Patricia Hill Collins
Interlocking systems of race, gender and class
Kimberlé Crenshaw
Intersectionality—how multiple forms of inequality interact
Nancy Fraser
Gender justice, economic redistribution, recognition and political representation
Beauvoir is particularly important historically: The Second Sex became enormously influential internationally and subsequently influenced thinkers including hooks and Judith Butler. Feminist philosophy subsequently developed into a much broader examination of oppression, agency, equality and social institutions.
But for your Global Egalitarianism, I'd add a substantial Global South component
This is where I think your list can become much stronger.
African feminist thinkers:
Filomina Chioma Steady — African feminism as a humanistic approach incorporating gender, race, class, colonialism and global economic relations.
Ifi Amadiume — African gender systems, colonialism and the limitations of imposing Western gender categories.
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí — particularly important for challenging Western assumptions about gender and precolonial Yoruba society.
Obioma Nnaemeka — nego-feminism, emphasizing negotiation, accommodation and African contexts.
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie — African women's liberation and social transformation.
Nkiru Nzegwu — African gender systems and critiques of Western feminism.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — contemporary popular advocate of gender equality.
These aren't simply "African versions" of Western feminism. African feminist scholarship has specifically challenged Western feminist assumptions and emphasized colonialism, race, class, globalization, community and culturally specific forms of gender relations.
Black feminism is another essential bridge
I'd particularly include:
Sojourner Truth → Anna Julia Cooper → Audre Lorde → bell hooks → Angela Davis → Patricia Hill Collins → Kimberlé Crenshaw
This tradition is exceptionally relevant to Global Egalitarianism because it asks whether an equality movement can really be universal if it ignores the interaction of gender + race + class + economic power.
Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality and Collins's "matrix of domination" are particularly useful theoretical tools for your project.
And I'd include feminist thinkers outside the Western/Christian tradition
For a genuinely global framework, you could eventually add:
Savitribai Phule — Indian education, caste and women's liberation
Pandita Ramabai — Indian women's education and social reform
B. R. Ambedkar — not a feminist theorist primarily, but very important for the intersection of caste, gender and equality
Fatima Mernissi — Moroccan/Islamic feminist scholarship
Nawal El Saadawi — Egyptian feminism, patriarchy and economic/social liberation
Chandra Talpade Mohanty — transnational/decolonial feminism
Vandana Shiva — ecofeminism, agriculture, globalization and ecological justice
For your 25-person "Mentors" list
If you're trying to keep the list manageable, I would not put 20 feminists on it. I'd choose representatives who collectively demonstrate the different contributions of feminist egalitarianism.
My suggested 10 would be:
Mary Wollstonecraft — foundational equality
Harriet Taylor Mill — women's political/economic equality
Sojourner Truth — race + gender + abolition
Simone de Beauvoir — existential feminism
Emma Goldman — anarchist feminism
bell hooks — intersectional/liberatory feminism
Angela Davis — socialist/Black feminism
Kimberlé Crenshaw — intersectionality
Filomina Steady — African feminism
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí — decolonial critique of Western gender assumptions
That last pair is particularly valuable for your Global Egalitarianism project because they prevent the feminist component from becoming overwhelmingly Anglo-American/European. Steady's formulation explicitly connects gender inequality with race, class, colonialism and global economic structures.
And I would put Emma Goldman and Angela Davis especially close to your other categories: Goldman connects Feminist Egalitarianism ↔ Anarchism, while Davis connects Feminist Egalitarianism ↔ Socialism ↔ Anti-racism. That makes feminism a bridge among several of your Global Egalitarian traditions rather than an isolated category.
I can just call this Feminism, can't I?
Absolutely. “Feminism” is probably the better name for your list.
You don't need the term “Feminist Egalitarianism” unless you're trying to distinguish your own concept from feminism generally.
For your Global Egalitarianism framework, I'd simply use:
Feminism
The feminist tradition contributes the principle that gender should not be a basis for unequal dignity, rights, resources, opportunities, or political power. It also expands egalitarianism into areas often neglected by economic or political theories—family relationships, care work, bodily autonomy, sexuality, education, and everyday power.
Then your subcategories could include:
Early feminism — Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill
Socialist feminism — Kollontai, Davis
Anarchist feminism — Goldman
Black feminism — Sojourner Truth, bell hooks, Lorde
Intersectional feminism — Crenshaw, Collins
African feminism — Steady, Amadiume, Oyěwùmí
Ecofeminism — Vandana Shiva, etc.
Decolonial/transnational feminism — Mohanty, Mernissi
I actually think Feminism fits your overall list better stylistically. Your other categories are things like Humanism, Socialism, Anarchism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Social Ecology—so having Feminism alongside them is cleaner and more recognizable.
And conceptually, you can explain the relationship very simply:
Feminism: equality across gender.
Global Egalitarianism: equality across humanity.
The important qualification is that not all feminism is egalitarian in exactly the same way, just as not all socialism or Christianity is egalitarian. Your “Mentors” can represent the egalitarian strands within each broad tradition.