An egalitarian believes in equality for all people: equal opportunity, equal access to resources, regardless of their gender, age, skin colour, language, culture, sexual orientation, religion, ability, etc.
A feminist shares this belief but takes it further and says that women’s oppression must be acknowledged and eliminated before an egalitarian society can exist. We cannot discuss ‘equality’ without discussing women’s lack of equality. Thus, a feminist is a specific type of egalitarian (thought ‘feminist’ can be broken down further, into different ‘types’ of feminists), and feminism is a branch of egalitarianism. Of course there will be overlap: many feminists will also be LGBTQ activists, many LGBTQ activists will also be animal rights activists, many animal rights activists will also be feminists and so on go the circles.
15 September 2006, 4:34 pm
That is such a great, concise way of putting it!
15 September 2006, 7:31 pm
Thank you – can’t wait to catch up in Ottawa – you’re going to be there right? I have got a HugE proposal for your Laurier clan…
28 September 2006, 5:10 pm
I won’t be in Ottawa after all! I’d been planning to go, but decided against it because I got put on the waiting list to be in an art sale this weekend and school’s just been really busy. But I’m always up for proposals! You should email me about it!
05 October 2006, 5:30 pm
Thanks for putting this up, Candace. Very helpful.