Millennium Development Goals recognize the importance of women’s empowerment and gender equality. In this regard, Participatory Irrigation Management is viewed as an opportunity that creates a context for mainstreaming women’s participation and gender equity in irrigation management. Therefore, promoting the participation of women-farmers in water user associations is a prerequisite for improving Participatory Irrigation Management all over in India. In this scenario, this paper endeavors to evaluate the provisions of Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Management of Irrigation Systems (TNFMIS Act 2000) based on the empirical evidences about Exclusion vs. inclusion of women-farmers in Participatory Irrigation Management in Tamil Nadu. This article examines membership, participation and representation of women farmers in water user associations in one major and one medium irrigation system in this state. It identifies passive membership, nominal participation, notional participation and non-representation of women-farmers in water user associations as factors impeding women participation in Participatory Irrigation Management. Based on these empirical findings, this article propounds that the patriarchal social structure and institutions engender gender discrimination in land ownership and women’s exclusion in participation in decision making and representation in positions of authority in Participatory Irrigation Management.Concomitantly it argues that although the TNFMIS Act envisions participation of women and men farmers, it has been to a greater extent less instrumental in bringing about gender equity in Participatory Irrigation Management. Therefore, it propounds Gender mainstreaming in Participatory Irrigation Management as the agenda of inclusive legislation to bring about enhanced.