Two and a half centuries ago last week, Charles Fourier was born in Besançon, France, the son of a successful small businessman. He became a salesman for a cloth merchant in Lyon, as well as a witty, imaginative writer. And as a socialist and feminist thinker, he was far ahead of his time.

Indeed, Fourier is sometimes credited with inventing the term “feminism.” Not only a staunch advocate of women’s equality, he was also one of the first to understand that the patriarchal order could not be fully destroyed without socialism. Fourier was also far ahead of his time in understanding how gender politics were intertwined with all social reaction and progress. In 1808, he wrote:

As a general proposition: Social progress and changes of period are brought about by virtue of the progress of women toward liberty, and social retrogression occurs as a result of a diminution in the liberty of women. Other events influence these political changes; but there is no cause which produces social progress or decline as rapidly as a change in the condition of women.