Debates around the Women's Reservation Bill, whatever their particular stance, have all taken for granted the legitimacy of gender as a political category, in contrast to the fierce controversy that the issue provoked in France in the 1990s over the same issue of political representation of women. With this as a starting point for a reflection on the status of gender in the Indian polity, the author explores the historical fluctuations of gender's legitimacy as a political category, the principles on which this legitimacy is founded and, lastly, its intrinsic ambivalence.