Answer :
The Enlightenment period's ideals of equality and freedom only marginally impacted the status of women, with figures like Émilie du Châtelet, Germaine de Staël, and Mary Wollstonecraft being notable exceptions. However, patriarchal norms continued to dominate, and it is challenging to find numerous recognized female figures, indicating the gender biases of the era.
The Enlightenment brought about significant intellectual and social changes in Europe, yet the impact on women's status was mixed. Some women, such as Émilie du Châtelet and Germaine de Staël, did manage to carve out roles as thinkers and had their contributions acknowledged. These were exceptions, however, and the broader societal perspective continued to view women as subordinate to men, an idea propagated by influential Enlightenment figures like Rousseau.
The case of Mary Wollstonecraft is notable; she addressed the conditions of women in society and is recognized as an early feminist thinker. Wollstonecraft's ideas on women's rights, although after her time largely disregarded by the male-dominated scholarly world, have gained significant recognition since the 1970s. Despite these advances, the Enlightenment’s ideals of equality and freedom were not widely applied to women during that period.
The assessment of how easy or difficult it is to find examples of women Enlightenment thinkers can reflect the period's treatment of women. The scarcity of recognized female figures in Enlightenment history testifies to the prevailing gender biases of the era, notwithstanding the individual achievements of some exceptional women thinkers.