選舉中的婦女保障名額是中華民國橫跨海峽兩岸的歷史中，最具有歷史延續性的體制之一。就體制設計的精神而言，婦女保障名額的設定，和當代差異政治的觀點非常相符。然而，差異政治的相關理論，是1960年代西方第二波婦女運動與新社會運動發展後的產物。相比之下，中華民國憲法本文中婦女保障名額的規定，就差異政治的實踐而言，有先驅性的意義。過去的歷史研究，往往將憲法本文中婦女保障名額的制定，視為婦女爭取參政權的一個連續過程，並未細究兩者之間的區別。然而，女性爭取成為平等的公民，和女性爭取成為政治代表的機會，無論在概念上或是實踐上，都並不完全相同。兩者之間，非但不見得同時出現，也不存在必然的歷史連續性。婦女保障名額的訴求為什麼會出現？在目前關於民國時期婦女參政的研究中，學界並沒有清楚或一致的看法，但是多半認為差異政治的思維是1930年代中期出現。本文重新檢視辛亥革命到制憲時期婦女參政運動的歷史，並且主張1920年初期五四運動的影響及孫中山聯俄容共的政策，使得政治代表應如何產生出現關鍵性的變化。1924年孫中山呼籲召開國民會議時，建議以9種社會團體產生代表，此一建議打破了辛亥革命以來以地域為基礎產生政治代表的慣例，也使得社會身份與政治代表之間產生聯結。這使得1924年到1925年間婦女爭取參與國民會議的運動，促成了婦女應成為一個社會類別的思維，也因此開啟差異政治的論述，最終形成對婦女保障名額的爭取。

Reserving seats for women in elections was stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of China in 1946, and this constitutional practice has enjoyed historical continuities after the Republic of China government moved to Taiwan. As an institutional design, the reserved seats stipulation fits the contemporary discourse on the politics of difference. Theories of the politics of difference, however, are products of the new social movement of the 1960s in Western countries. The reserved seats stipulation in the Republic of China's constitution therefore, comparatively speaking, was a pioneering practice of the politics of difference. Previous studies on how the reserved seats became a constitutional stipulation tends to regard it as part of the struggle for women's suffrage. However, fighting for the rights to vote is different from fighting to have the opportunity to be political representatives.How did the idea of reserved seats emerge as a political appeal? The current literature does not have a clear answer for this question, but most studies show the emphasis of the difference between men and women emerged as a political discourse in the mid-1930s. This paper traces the history of the women's suffrage movement since 1911, when the Republic of China was established, and argues that the critical moment came in 1924. Influenced by the socialist thinking since the May Fourth movement and his policy on accommodating the Chinese Communist Party, in the mid-1920s Sun Yat-sen came to a different view on how political representatives should be elected. In 1924, when Sun called for a national conference and suggested that the conference should have delegates from nine different social groups, he made a major departure from the previous practice whereby representatives were mainly elected on a regional basis. It was the linkage between the social groups and political representation that prompted feminist activists to campaign on recognizing women as a social group. The campaign led to the emergence of the discourse on the politics of difference, and eventually to the constitutional stipulation on reserved seats for women in elections.