Lebanon is undergoing a once-in-a-lifetime revolution that will shape the country for generations to come.

One of the defining aspects of this revolution has been the participation of women. Women are not just standing beside men in this revolution, they are leading it. They are at the forefront of every rally and orchestrating many of its next steps.

One question that’s been on my mind has been how this revolution will impact the status of women in Lebanon in the future. Although Lebanon is more progressive than other countries in the region, it still lags behind many in terms of protections and rights of women.

Will the revolution lead to more social justice for women or will things go back to the way they’ve been for generations? Will women be better represented in the government or will men once again dominate politics? Will it bring about cultural and regulatory changes that improve the rights of women or will we remain, in many ways, second-class citizens? Is the hype that the “revolution is women” going to last after we, the Lebanese people, finally tackle corruption and take charge of our country?

We can look at other Arab Spring revolutions for clues.

In Tunisia, women also participated hand-in-hand with men in that country’s 2011 revolution, which is widely considered the most successful of the region’s uprisings. Tunisia’s post-revolution reforms gave women greater rights and political representation and women now make up a third of the sub-Saharan country’s lawmakers.

Tunisia’s situation teaches us that the more women you have in the government, the more women’s rights are protected. For example, when opponents of women’s rights in Tunisia started making a case for restrictive government policies, the parliament – where women now make up a third of representatives – passed laws to protect women’s rights.

In Egypt, which was the next country to take up the banner of revolution following Tunisia, things have not fared as well. Egyptian women also marched with their male counterparts and braved the security forces as they demanded democratic reforms. They were the ones credited with keeping the revolutionary flame alive.

However, after the fall of the Mubarak government, women representatives of the uprising faced opposition to their demands for increased gender rights and protections from the new government, as well as from – surprisingly – their fellow male marchers. Post-revolution Egypt has clearly failed women, whose rights continue to be ignored.

This revolution has the potential to heal our damaged country and the long-simmering sectarian tensions that led to our terrible civil war. Many are calling this the actual end of the civil war.

Another giant step towards creating the new Lebanon should be how we improve the rights and protections of women. Lebanon should follow in the footsteps of other nations, including Tunisia, Rwanda and Sweden, and institute quotas for women representatives in parliament. We could learn from Iraq, also undergoing its own revolution, which requires that half of those hired by the health and education ministries be women and that women make up at least 30 percent of hires in other ministries. As with religious representation (no matter how you feel about that), women’s representation should be enforced. 

Once we have proper representation, we can deal with the issues that are suppressing women. We can start to address the problems such as Lebanon’s civil laws, including its statutes on divorce and property rights that not only discriminate against women, but clearly violate their human rights, too. We could also address issues such as child marriage, domestic violence and sexual harassment, which remain serious problems.

The revolution is a wonderful first step in the rebirth of our nation. But it is also only the first step in our march towards true equality.