The Power of Silence: A Comparison Between Judge William and Kierkegaard’s View of Women

Feminist readers of Søren Kierkegaard’s corpus may be all too familiar with Judge William’s troublesome view of his wife in Either/Or Part II. As readers, we may be able to find refuge in the fact that Judge William is a pseudonym whose very worldview Kierkegaard seeks to undermine, but what are readers to do when they find similar words about marriage and domesticity under Kierkegaard’s own name in For Self-Examination? In this paper, I compare Kierkegaard and his pseudonym Judge William’s view on women, their relationship to men, and the implications this has on femininity and masculinity. It is not the goal of this paper to exonerate Kierkegaard’s view of women. Rather, it is the goal to discern the similarities and differences between the two views and ‘judge for ourselves’ what wisdom, if any, we may take from Kierkegaard’s words on women and their relationship to men and masculinity.