 Kierkegaard is sometimes regarded as an apolitical thinker, but in fact he intervened stridently in church politics, cultural politics, and in the turbulent social changes of his time. His earliest published essay, for example, was a polemic against women’s liberation. It is a reactionary apologetic for the prevailing patriarchal values, and was motivated largely by Kierkegaard’s desire to ingratiate himself with factions within Copenhagen’s intellectual circles. This latter desire gradually left him, but his relation to women remained highly questionable. 