The new directions in American political history have been ably described by the editors of "The Democratic Experiment." These are now freshly out of the gate, but it is clear that they will continue to unfold in the years ahead. The author read the book with distinct pleasure--so much so that she wondered--more than once--whether it was not just a bit sinful. Why is this book so much fun when women rarely appear in its pages? Gradually she came to understand why. Its pages provide a fine context for evaluating the relationship between United States women's history and United States political history. The articles in the book brought to mind four paradigms of that relationship. This article presents the author's comment on these paradigms with the goal of understanding how scholars in the fields of women's history and political history are cooperating now and how they might cooperate even better in the future.