I'd appreciate links to essays or summat that give a clear-eyed assessment of the extent to which women were or weren't willing or unwilling chattel at various points throughout history. You seem to be referring to background knowledge that I don't have—the only "knowledge" of the history of the lot of women (and the culture of gentlemen) I have comes from clearly ideological narratives. Excepting the classical era, it seems like it'd be difficult for me to find analyses that avoided implicit moralizing and stuck to factual description. I'm especially interested in the lot of women during the High Middle Ages, which I tend to think of as a high-point of civilization. I would be surprised to learn that the lot of women then was as bad as it seems like it was in classical antiquity, or as it seems like it is today in much of the world including many Western subcultures.

(Interestingly I notice a small "arguments are like soldiers" effect going on on my part: when you say "yay for progress" you're specifically talking about women's rights, but my brain automatically reached for cached counter-examples to "progress" that have nothing to do with women's rights, and wanted to ask why someone who's studied complex systems and group epistemology is going along with the progress narrative, even though you never actually said nor really implied that you were going along with the progress narrative in general. I hope this is because I care about historiography and not because I've been mind-killed by ideology.)

I'm confused that you linked to the Wikipedia section on the influences of the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. From what it says Prussia's subsequent reforms were primarily military in nature, and the occupation by France only lasted a few years. There doesn't seem to have been substantial cultural reform—(should we expect Prussia to have adopted the leftist norms & ideology of France due to such an ephemeral military occupation?)—and politically the primary consequence seems to have been an increase in German nationalism, which doesn't seem to have been such a good thing given the next century and a half of German history. Is there a primary source that goes into more detail about the relevant cultural consequences of Prussia's defeat in the War of the Fourth Coalition?

ETA: Just realized how off-topic this is. Also close to mind-killing if not itself mind-killing. Perhaps better suited to PM or email.

ETA2: This Wikipedia section is pertinent, though lacking in citations.