Stereotypes

Personally, I find it interesting that the great stereotypes of the modern western world started in the thinking of the minority in the Enlightenment, while the form of government the majority of the Enlightenment thinkers thought was best was benevolent absolutism. The two stereotypes (racism and increased gender stereotypes) our society is still trying to get over, while benevolent absolutism is no longer in America. For that matter, benevolent absolutism was no longer in America in 1776, the same year David Hume died, because of the British Civil War (American Revolution). Why is it that when an one old thing goes (benevolent absolutism) another two new things are carved in stone (the idea of racial difference and increased gender stereotypes)?

Voltaire views that men are "equal when they perform animal functions, and when they exercise their understanding" but that "the poverty connected with our species subordinates one man to another" (Voltaire, “Equality” from the Philosophical Dictionary). Voltaire believes that it is one's wealth that differentiates one person from another. Out of Voltaire's conversation about subordinate beings, not once does he mention skin color. However, he does, in a way, touch on gender inequality issues. If two "men" are equal when they preform animal functions and learn together, would not a woman also be equal when she works and learns with other men (“Equality” from the Philosophical Dictionary)? With the great salons, to a certain extent, this was the case. Since, at the time, a woman couldn't go out and join the great thinking circles, a good saloniere could bring the circles to her home. For a society that didn't smile on women in the least, why did the great scholars agree to go to a woman's salon for the woman to mediate if they did not respect her ideas in the least? Even more so, how ethical is it for the Thinkers to go to the womens' salons and learn from the women's ideas and talents and then reaffirm that woman "were inferior to men in the crucial faculies of reason and ethics and so should be subordinated to men" ( Bonnie S Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser "Women in the Salons", Sherman 49)? Could one even say that this falls under Hobbes theory that everyone is out to help themselves alone?