Final answer:
Women participated in the French Revolution and espoused Enlightenment ideals, but they did not gain legal equality; their contributions were significant, yet they faced resistance and were often sidelined in law and politics. Icons like Olympe de Gouges fought for women's rights, but it took over a century for French women to achieve suffrage.
Step-by-step explanation:
Throughout the French Revolution, despite the instrumental roles women played, equality under the law was not achieved. Revolutionary documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man endorsed the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and fraternity, but did not extend the same rights to women. The most notable figure arguing for women's rights during this period was Olympe de Gouges, who insisted that liberty and equality meant that women should be treated as equals to men. Unfortunately, her efforts, along with those of other women, were met with strong resistance, and she was executed for her advocacy.
Notable exceptions of women who broke through social barriers include Émilie du Châtelet and Germaine de Staël, who engaged in the era's intellectual debates. Nonetheless, much of the Enlightenment thinking still prescribed a subordinate role for women, with Rousseau advocating for a domestic role for them and even thinkers like Locke assuming men should retain leadership roles.
Despite the initial setbacks, by the end of the 19th century, the liberal movement began recognizing the call for women's rights as a logical extension of the principle that "all men are equal" to "all people are equal." However, actual legal rights for women in France lagged significantly, with women only gaining the right to their own earnings by 1896 and suffrage not achieved until 1944.