There are many similarities between the uprisings taking place around the Middle East and North Africa. One example is Change Square, the centre of Yemen’s revolutionary activities, which mirrors Egypt’s Tahrir Square, and the small groups of women who started occupying it in February. These women have counterparts in other countries taking part in the Arab Spring, women who are still lacking basic rights already achieved by other women around the world. Yet, the role of women in the Arab and North African uprisings has been downplayed globally in newspapers and TV channels.

While the media focuses its lens on the people fighting to depose the dictators who ruled their countries for long periods, often reaching double digits, women are fighting for democracies that will be inclusive of all women and their rights.

How is this a revolution for women, you ask?

Throughout the Arab Spring, Summer, and Fall, Egyptian women have been taking advantage of the revolutionary atmosphere and momentum to campaign against oppressive attitudes of men. In March, women who took to the streets at an International Women’s Day Demo but were attacked by a group of men, many of whom sexually harassed and assaulted them. This incident is one of many cases of sexual harassment that occur in Egypt every year. In fact, sexual harassment has been on the rise in Egypt for the past few years according to the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights. They claim there was an increase in sexually related offences in 2009, reaching some 120,000 cases, well above the figures for 2006, 2007 and 2008. Across post-revolution Egypt, women have taken this opportunity to fight for equal societies but there is a long way to go. The revolution will not be complete until men and women can be seen as equals on the streets of Egypt.

In Tunisia, where men and women protested side by side during the Arab Spring, it has been claimed that women have more rights than those of neighbouring countries. While Tunisian women have the same rights to divorce as men, and equality due to the Tunisian civil rights code from 1956, former President President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali restricted women from wearing Islamic headscarves in public places in 2006. He referred to the headscarf as a sectarian form of dress which had come into Tunisia uninvited. This action deprived women of a right granted by their constitution according to human rights activists. It also serves as a reminder for Tunisian women to fight for rights and responsibilities that reflect their opinions in a post-revolutionary Tunisia.

For the first time in its recent history, thousands of women in Yemen have joined hands to challenge the status quo in their country with the hope of gaining more rights. In mid-April, Yemen’s capital of Sana’a saw 10,000 women march through their capital to denounce President Ali Abdullah Saleh after he accused them of “mingling with men” at protests. Last month, when Tawakkul Karman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, she highlighted the role of women in the Arab Spring. Kamran, a 33-year-old mother of three, journalist and human rights activist was seized from her car and imprisoned for organizing protests, a time when Yemenis began turning against Saleh. Karman’s story echoes the sentiments of women throughout the world who no longer want to be bound by restrictive cultural norms and codes of patriarchal societies.

The experiences of women in Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia demonstrate that we are living through an exciting period of time. It is only in a globalised world that we can see a domino effect, a chain reaction, where campaigns for equality spread from country to country. Women are protesting in new ways such as social media; it’s time to listen and join the global debate.