The admixture of feminine weakness and susceptibility’: Gendered Personifications of the State in International Law

19th century international law textbooks were infused with the gendered personification of states.Legal academics, such as Johann Casper Bluntschli, John Westlake, Robert Phillimore andJames Lorimer, relied on gendered personification to ascribe attributes to states. Masculinestates, reasonable, bounded and strong, were the backbone of Western civilisation, whilefeminine states were irrational, permeable and lacking in the reasonability necessary for fullstatehood. Britannia may have represented the British Empire at its zenith but the allegory wasnot intended as a rallying call for women’s political participation. John Bull represented theactuality of citizenship. Recent scholarship recognises the import of 19th century internationallegal academia to contemporary law. This article argues that the personifications, whichsuffused the writings of these authors, set the terms in which contemporary international lawunderstands statehood. Explicitly gendered language may no longer be invoked but the terms ofstatehood remain sexed. When scholars return to the writings of 19th century international legalacademia, attention to the negative gendered bequests of the era is required.