It's important to note that Jesus is asking for a particular person (Mary), as opposed to calling someone to him. Jesus is both fully God and fully human; as God, He is always calling all of us to Him at all times. As Man, people seek Him out; He usually doesn't go looking for them.
Does He call Mary to Him in John 11:28 to expressly show that women are called just as men are? Remember that in first century Israel, women were considered little more than property - an unmarried woman like Mary was even less respected - and Jewish men did not even worship in the same part of the temple as women. For Jesus to call Mary out of the house to meet Him on the road seems quite extraordinary to me. Does the house represent the Old Order - the traditional view of religion which Jesus is about to upend - and does Jesus call Mary out because He prefers to do this in partnership with her?? Certainly Jesus doesn't need Mary to raise Lazarus - but still He clearly wants her there.
This seems to raise a couple of important ideas that will be explored here. Jesus may not "need" Mary in order to raise Lazarus, but the fact that He includes her seems very significant. Note that in all of Jesus's interactions with Mary, He implies that she is prophetic, that she sees something that no one else sees except Him. He doesn't just grant permission to Mary to do things, as that would imply a patriarchal system in which a woman must seek a man's permission. Rather, as He puts it in Luke, He states that she in essence already has something that belongs to her (and He will not take it away). Jesus views Mary (and therefore all women) as fully equal with men as part of God's created order.
It's interesting, as mentioned earlier, that Jesus partners with a woman in each stage of His Incarnation: with His mother in His birth, with Mary Magdalene in His death/Resurrection, and (I believe) with Mary of Bethany in His life/ministry. Jesus's mother and Mary Magdalene are well known even to non-Christians and have been written about for centuries, and I believe that is because they conform to traditional female archtypes which are non-threatening to patriarchy: Jesus's mother is the Perfect Woman, both mother and virgin; Mary Magdalene is the Fallen Woman, the prostitute/sinner who needs a man to rescue and redeem her. Mary of Bethany, in contrast, is utterly non-traditional and does not conform to any accepted female archtype; therefore she is threatening to any established patriarchal order and much less likely to be upheld as an example or examined by the church.
Mary does get some recognition as a "contemplative" who is praised for centering on Jesus and as an example for women seeking religious vocations, but I believe this is far too narrow an interpretation of what her presence in the Gospels in meant to show.
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