The French Marxist Louis Althusser, in a 1970 essay titled “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes in direction of an investigation),” recognized the central position performed by ideology in on a regular basis discourse. Implied within the lifestyle, ideology, thus, is greater than a set of beliefs concerning the world. It encompasses materials practices inside particular establishments, resulting in topic formation and the copy of social relationships, thereby shaping and policing our behaviour and bounds. On this textual content, Althusser launched the idea of “interpellation” as nicely.

Althusser additionally underscores that the ideological state apparatuses, such because the household, faith, and tradition, mixed with the repressive state apparatuses, such because the police and the military, serve to unfold the dominant ideology in society. Within the course of, the constructed ideologies, embodied in such apparatuses, trigger the internalisation of identities, which turn into the only marker of individuality in social interactions. People thereby rework from being themselves into social actors managed by the company of the dominant social establishments. Again and again, Althusser’s idea of “interpellation” has been neatly folded alongside the creases to suit the feminist ideological discourse. Ideology, thus, turns into fluid, reinforcing social behaviors and position notion in society.

Interpellation and gendered behaviours: a feminist theoretical perspective

Judith Butler’s idea of performativity is intently linked to Althusser’s understanding of interpellation. Butler, in her work, underscores the impression of “hailing” created by ideological forces in society, inside a gendered framework, that results in the formation of topics and the roles assigned to us. Outlined because the performative materialisation of the social setting, her work is instrumental to our understanding of how gender roles are distributed, perceived, and adopted in society. This entanglement of performative materialisation with social norms and values is intently tied to guilt and compulsion performing on a person. Gender, for Butler, is produced by means of repeated ideological acts of interpellation.

Simone de Beauvoir, equally identified for her trailblazing work in feminist philosophy, most notably for The Second Intercourse, is a catalyst for difficult ladies’s conditions with a distinguished feminist perspective in society. Her emphasis is on escaping patriarchal gendered polarisation by deepening a type of singularity that transcends the normal gendered packing containers we’re cramped into. Whereas the concepts posited might sound ambiguous, they heart on the rejection of the patriarchal notions of femininity by the rejection of all externally imposed identities, thereby interpellating ladies as artistic constructors of their singular subjectivity, with a give attention to autonomy.

Bell Hooks’ works too suggest the thought of inverting the ability hierarchies and interpellation of identities, together with the necessity to make the entire ideological assemble extra encompassing, comprising an finish to sexual oppression rooted in racism, classism, and imperialism. These, in response to her, are identities of domination, consigning to people the best way they’re “hailed” in society. The traditional police officer trope to grasp this “hailing” can be utilized to the method the place gender roles are assigned robotically based mostly on a person’s intercourse since start.

Policing the self: patriarchal websites, management, and identification

Althusser’s idea of interpellation, whereas being central to sociological research, has additionally established itself within the understanding of how gender is constructed symbolically in tradition. All patriarchal establishments, whether or not relationship, motherhood, or sexuality, work on an implicit consignment of particular person identities, which turn into internalised, thereby reinforcing particular gendered topic positions and patriarchal buildings.

All patriarchal establishments, whether or not relationship, motherhood, or sexuality, work on an implicit consignment of particular person identities, which turn into internalised, thereby reinforcing particular gendered topic positions and patriarchal buildings.

The semiotics of relationship historically depends on the understanding that males method ladies with no house for queer romantic experiences, thus changing gender right into a social assemble that “hails” people to adapt to particular societal expectations. Moreover, the media, because the conduit of our understanding of how society works, reinforces these norms from a younger age through publicity to books, movies, and information, shaping our understanding of how relationship works from a primarily masculine lens.

The best way sexual politics works, on an identical notice, interpellates males as seekers of enjoyment with sure needs. The position of girls is restricted to offering sexual pleasure with sure implicit expectations associated to efficiency in mattress. Sexuality is known from a patriarchal lens, primarily as an act between a organic man and lady, marking its inflexible boundaries. Ambiguous heterosexual experiences are fairly often handled as a type of domination, distinct from each coercion and productive energy. Heterosexual domination, as a type of Althusserian interpellation permits us to see the ability in query and the way it’s rejected. The codification of heterosexual intercourse can also be intently associated to the argument that posits males as perpetrators and ladies as “morally superior victims” by male researchers. The artistic and transformative political drive of queer experiences and their affirmative rejection is scarcely paid any consideration to.

Motherhood might be understood because the epicenter of the gendered software of Althusser’s interpellation. The method of turning into a mom interpellates female identification to the position of a mom by means of societal and cultural expectations and norms. The concept of motherhood, being a selfless and divine entity solely invested in kids’s well-being whereas sacrificing particular person goals, displays the idea. Girls, thereby, simply “hail” themselves as moms, resigning to the stress to adapt to those expectations voluntarily due to the social structure. Sure parenting practices embed these ideological expectations, related to emotions of guilt and compulsion, additionally recognized by Beauvoir.

Within the modern international panorama, cinema, as nicely, adjustments from an instrument of leisure to a hegemonic cultural equipment configuring collective imaginaries, mediating dominant ideologies, and authorising particular etymologies of fact and violence.

Within the modern international panorama, cinema, as nicely, adjustments from an instrument of leisure to a hegemonic cultural equipment configuring collective imaginaries, mediating dominant ideologies, and authorising particular etymologies of fact and violence. Moreover reflecting societal norms, filmic representations function performatively, reifying ideological constructs. The gendered gaze and representational methods both serve to hyper-visualise, fetishise, or solely erase the marginalised identities, connecting the politics of being seen with the politics of realizing and being.

These establishments don’t merely function patriarchal websites, however they turn into lively brokers of the method of interpellation.  The method is rarely totality in itself. Whereas it’s an method that assigns particular person roles into particular whole classes, by no means fluid, it’s an method to grasp how ideology shapes and constructs our experiences even earlier than we realise it. Implicit within the on a regular basis energy dynamics, to be interpellated is to refuse, to adapt, to withstand, to undertake.

The method isn’t solely freedom in itself. Additionally it is the flexibility to reframe or restructure the buildings shaping ideology and the understanding of the identical. On the finish, we could be hailed as a spouse, a mom, a submissive accomplice however to be chosen to turn into one thing extra is at all times on us.

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References:

1. Althusser, L. (1970) Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes in direction of an Investigation). [Essay].
2. Callari, A. & Ruccio, D.F. (2017) ‘Subjectivity, interpellation, and copy of social relations: Althusser, Butler, and the topic of ideology’, Rethinking Marxism, 29(3), pp. 387–407. doi:10.1080/08935696.2017.1358498.
3. The Hindu (2017) ‘What’s interpellation in political philosophy?’, The Hindu, 20 April. Accessible at: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/what-is-interpellation-in-political-philosophy/article18149228.ece (Accessed: 19 August 2025).
4. McNay, L. (2022) ‘Topic formation and feminist concept’, in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford College Press. Accessible at: https://educational.oup.com/ebook/41973/chapter-abstract/355256367 (Accessed: 19 August 2025).
5. Thakur, R. (2023) ‘The Celluloid State: Gender, ideological interpellation and epistemic violence in modern Indian cinema’, ResearchGate. Accessible at: https://www.researchgate.internet/publication/393944822 (Accessed: 19 August 2025).
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8. Hooks, B. (2000) Feminist concept: From margin to heart. 2nd edn. Boston: South Finish Press. Accessible at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2207&context=jiws (Accessed: 19 August 2025).
9. McGlotten, S. (2009) ‘Subjected topics: On Judith Butler’s paradox of interpellation’, Hypatia, 24(4), pp. 94–112. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01061.x.