One of the controversial elements of the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the majority’s suggestion that historical gains in women’s political participation obviate the need for a full consideration of women’s reliance interests in constitutional precedents protecting abortion rights.  According to this view, advances in gender equality anchored in women’s suffrage and reinforced through participation in shaping public opinion and running for office have given women an alternative and more appropriate way of influencing law—via the legislative process. The general observations made on this point are admittedly not a central pillar on which the Dobbs decision rests; they are better characterized as relevant matters the court considered before deciding, on differently specified grounds, to overrule its own precedent on abortion rights. Nonetheless, the association made between progressive gains in women’s political power and the reversal of longstanding rights requires critical examination.  What is at stake in presenting women’s progress as a political trade-off?  Why must gains in one arena be balanced out by losses in another?  These questions are urgent but not at all new. Ancient Athenian democracy had no shortage of myths advancing the claim that women’s political success justifies subsequent claw-backs of their power. My analysis focuses on a myth (recounted by Varro) in which Athenian women lost the right to vote and were barred from full membership in the political community because they won a court case.  The lesson, as I interpret it, is that women can have power at the polls or in the courts—not both.  This, I contend, is not simply a story about the institutionalization of bias against women; it is also, simultaneously, a story about the anxieties and contradictions of democracy.  Fear of the tyranny of the 51% (women) triggers periodic counter-majoritarian measures to limit women’s gains in political power. This is why women’s legal history looks cyclical rather than progressive.