This is a real question, but, also an unanswerable question, and also an incorrect question; it's both, and sometimes in ways that are impossible to distinguish

This is a real question, but, also an unanswerable question, and also an incorrect question; it's both, and sometimes in ways that are impossible to distinguish - it's also neither. Like basically any large social movement, you're not going to find multiple core principles and be unable to pick one that is "more core". I realize that's all possible answers to that question. Stick with me for a moment. You can look at the suffrage movement - literally, the seeking of a right that men had that women didn't - and consider it both "reaching for equal treatment" and "empowerment". Empowerment was the means by which equal treatment was approached. So in that way, it's both at the same time. If you look at feminism in medical research, one of the major points is that most medical research is/was done on the male body. So then feminism in this realm is about equal representation in the experimental populations (equal treatment) but also sometimes about women-specific research, such as birth control (women's empowerment). So in that way, it's both, at different times. If you look at third wave feminism (started in the late 80s) - which many of us probably by default consider "modern" feminism since it's what we grew up with - it introduced the concept of "intersectionality", which is literally about more than women/men. Combine that with the heavy overlap with LGTBQ+, and it starts being about equal treatment and empowerment of _people_ irrespective of woman-hood / sex. So in that way it's neither. So now we're on fourth wave feminism (according to Wikipedia) which (AFAIK) is entirely about "stop doing shitty things to people, specifically these shitty things to these groups of people". And yes, the heavy emphasis is on women and minorities, but the "core principle" is "stop doing shitty things to people". So, in that way, it's neither. If that's still not all clear, this question you've asked is kind of like asking "which is a more core principle of Christianity; love of Jesus or worship of God?", or like asking, "which is a more core principle of Amazon Web Services; on-demand computing power, or not managing your own hardware"? Or - and this one's a bit more out there - "which is the best peak in the Adirondaks?". You have too many people involved to have an actual answer to that question, but you can identify the possible answers (the peaks) the same way you can identify the possible more core principles of something. But like the peaks, there's gonna be a set where asking "which is more core" is an unanswerable question.