許多國家的歷史經驗顯示，憲法之所以保障性別平等，不是以男性為主的制憲者所自動給予的恩賜，而是婦運的集體抗爭所促成的結果。中華民國憲法也不例外。本文考察我國憲法中性別平等條款的歷史，以「法律機會結構」來解釋婦運如何在制憲的過程中納入男女平等條款來改寫男人的憲法、在修憲的過程中倡議婦女憲章、接著又發動釋憲運動來實踐憲法，並以女性主義憲法動員論來探討婦運在不同階段中提出憲法平等想像的意義與限制。從改造男人所寫的憲法到書寫女人的憲法，乃至於讓憲法為女人所用，這一系列的婦運憲法動員雖然有其侷限性，但已經在憲法共識中儲存了性別平等的價值，並且改變許多性別歧視的法律。本文主張，婦運應該繼續不斷地對憲法文本加以爭辯並且賦予其意義，如此，憲法才會是屬於人民的憲法，女人才能成為民主國家中憲法社群的一份子。

The Republic of China constitution has two gender equality clauses, whose
existence is well-known but whose history remains largely unstudied. This paper is an investigation into the feminist legal history of the constitution, focusing on the making and of the two gender equality clauses so as to explore the relationship between the women’s movement and the constitution as well as the contested meanings of gender equality. I consider the text of the constitution as a site of contestation and examine how feminists have made interpretive and amendatory claims on the constitution’s text, especially through constitutional litigation and advocacy for a constitutional amendment. Employing the concepts of the legal opportunity structure and the feminist constitutional agenda, my study reveals how the women’s movement in China in the early twentieth ce ntury advocated the inclusion of gender equality clause in the new constitution, how feminists in Taiwan
had mobilized for constitutional change in the early 1990s, advocating a
constitutional amendment for substantive equality, and how these feminists went on to mobilize for constitutional litigation as part of the feminist legal reform movement that targeted laws that impose different treatment on women. Their campaign to change and interpret the text of the constitution is both an attempt to declare women’s membership to the constitutional community and an effort to reshape the meaning of equality in the constitution. I argue that the feminist constitutional mobilization has produced significant change, and suggest that
feminists continue to raise claims about the constitution so as to transform the constitution into a living document in people’s lives and to make women participatory members of the constitutional community.