Esther Pineda G

Esther Pineda G., often published as Esther Pineda, is a Venezuelan sociologist and feminist writer. She has written sociological studies, essay collections, and poetic anthologies about misogyny in the history of Western philosophy, the connection between machismo and violence against women, and racial discrimination, particularly against Afro-Venezuelans. Pineda holds a PhD in sociology, and her writing frequently uses tools of sociological analysis.

Education Pineda attended the Central University of Venezuela, graduating in 2010. She continued to study there as a graduate student, earning an MS degree in women's studies in 2013, and a doctorate in social sciences in 2015. Montenegro's Wall Street International, Spain's Iberoamérica Social (es), and Venezuela's Contrapunto (es). In 2014, she published Racismo, endorracismo y resistencia, a discussion of race and racism in Venezuela that was written with support by the Venezuelan Ministry of Culture. In Racismo, endorracismo y resistencia, she challenges the cliché that history, in the case of Venezuela, is written by the victors; rather, she argues that the writers of Venezuelan history perpetrated a genocide against both Indigenous peoples in Venezuela and Afro-Venezuelans, and that to be a victor implies that a legitimate fight was held on equal terms, whereas repression in Venezuela has not historically been a balanced fight. She traces women's role in Western thought through 19th and 20th century thinkers who rejected the claim that social differences between women and men are naturally guaranteed, and she connects these arguments to the contemporary phenomenon of machismo.

In 2019, she published the book Cultura femicida.

Themes In her work, Pineda has studied themes of machismo and misogyny in philosophy and sociology, and the portrayal of women in video games. She has popularized the concept through using the term violencia estética (aesthetic violence) to describe the damaging and discriminatory pressure on women to respond to prevailing ideas of beauty.

Pineda has also devoted a large part of her writing to the study of racial discrimination, especially racist discrimination against Afro-Venezuelans. She has written on topics like the hypersexualization of Black women, racism in daily life, and police brutality. She has also written extensively on the topic of endorracismo (endoracism), which is the perpetuation of racist tropes and behaviours by people who are themselves victims of racist discrimination.

Selected works Roles de género y sexismo en seis discursos sobre la familia nuclear (2011) Racismo, endorracismo y resistencia (2014) Machismo y vindicación. La mujer en el pensamiento sociofilosófico (2017)