The Interpellated Subjects: Reflections on Subjectivity in Women's Reproductive Choices
The global fertility rate continues to decline, tied to diminishing fertility intentions among women. When popular feminist discourse evaluates women's choices in the name of "subjectivity", the "independent self" it invokes has been deconstructed by postmodern philosophy—from Foucault's analysis of power to Althusser's theory of interpellation, the subject is never pre-existing but constructed within the operation of power. Neoliberalism capitalizes on this: it reshapes the individual as "human capital", stripping feminism's core demands from emancipatory politics and re-encoding them into market logic. Althusser reveals that when a woman identifies with the call to "choose autonomously", she is constructed as a subject submitting to neoliberal value criteria. True emancipation may lie not in becoming the self-managing "subject", but in returning to the life-experience of the "self" uncolonized by economic efficiency. The Marxist concept of "alienation" offers an alternative measure for re-examining reproductive choices.
References
- GBD 2021 Fertility and Forecasting Collaborators. (2024). Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021, with forecasts to 2100: A comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The Lancet, 403, 2057–2099.
- Chen, M., Zhang, M. Z., & Shi, Z. L. (2021). Research progress of fertility support theory and practice in foreign countries. Population Journal, 43, 54–67.
- Chen, W. M., Wan, J. L., & Li, C. W. (2022). Why does internet use affect fertility intentions? Population Research, 46(3), 16–28.
- Shi, Z. L., & Yang, Y. X. (2019). Women’s social status and fertility: A literature review. Population Journal, 41, 31–44.
- Descartes, R. (1996). Meditations on first philosophy (J. Cottingham, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
- Kant, I. (1998). Critique of pure reason (P. Guyer & A. W. Wood, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
- Kant, I. (1997). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals (M. J. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
- Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
- Dai, X. H. (2015). “The death of the subject” and the reconstruction of female subjectivity: The modern-postmodern debate among Fraser, Ben Habib, and Butler. Fujian Tribune, 10, 92–97.
- Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Vintage Books.
- Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In B. Brewster (Trans.), Lenin and philosophy and other essays (pp. 127–186). Monthly Review Press.
- Zhang, Y. (2024). How the subordinated subject acquires its agency? –Judith Butler’s transcendence of Althusser and Foucault’s subject theory. Theory Horizon, 6, 44–50.
- Wang, Y. Q. (2023). From subject to "body": The theoretical turn of feminism. Journal of Anqing Normal University (Social Science Edition), 42(2), 15–19.
- Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979 (G. Burchell, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan.
- Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism’s stealth revolution. Zone Books.
- Dai, X. H. (2022). Feminism and neoliberalism: Tension, criticism and reflection. Fujian Tribune, 1, 136–145.
- Fraser, N. (2012). Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history: An introduction. halshs-00725055.
- Li, L. B., & Wang, G. S. (2023). Capitalism in south Korea, neo-liberal feminism, and the demographic crisis. Journal of Yanbian University (Social Sciences Edition), 56(6), 23–30.
- McRobbie, A. (2009). The aftermath of feminism: Gender, culture and social change. SAGE.
- Butler, J. (1997). The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection. Stanford University Press.
- Marx, K. (2012). Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. In Marx & Engels collected works (Vol. 1). Renmin Publish House.
- Engels, F. (2018). The origin of the family, private property and the state. Renmin Publish House.
- Jaggar, A. M. (1983). Feminist politics and human nature. Rowman & Allanheld.