Remember when “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” meant “government of the men, by the men, and for the men”? A century before Lincoln proclaimed these words, our founding fathers declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But they did not mean “men” in any inclusive sense: they excluded both women and black men. Democracy, in the olden days, was the special province of white men. It took a civil war and Abraham Lincoln to clarify the Creator’s intentions regarding non-white people. And it wasn’t until 1920, and even then not without great struggle, that the United States granted women the right to vote. To this day, women are still only beginning to fully realize their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (which have been enjoyed by men since the founding of the US democracy well over two centuries ago).

And now that little burp in Egyptian democracy–the military coup. The Egyptian military’s detainment of President Morsi, on the best construal, was a response to the expressed will of the people: they no longer want to be governed by the Muslim Brotherhood; the Muslim Brotherhood broke its promise to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The majority of the Egyptian people–secular and liberal, non-extreme Muslims, and Christians–want a free country, one not dominated by any particular religious group’s favored beliefs and practices. Morsi and his ruling cohorts, the people declared, had to go.

And yet startling statistics suggest that Egypt’s democratic revolution is just for men. Egyptian women nearly unanimously (99.3 percent of women aged 10 to 35) report that they have been victims of some type of sexual harassment, including verbal abuse (86.7 percent), physical touch (96.5 percent), and rape (90.9 percent). Sexual terrorism, which has been strategically deployed to scare female protestors out of the public square, is on the rise. One begins to think that Egypt’s democratic revolution, as in the days of old, applies to only half of the population.

Whether or not Islam itself encourages violence against women (and I don’t believe it does), women in Muslim-majority countries are, without question, vastly more likely than women in Western democracies to be victims of sexual violence and more unlikely to enjoy their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If there is nothing inherently Islamic about the oppression of women, if nothing in the Quran and the Hadith would preclude women from the full enjoyment of these rights, then Muslim leaders committed to democracy should work with all of their might to ensure that a Muslim democracy fully protects, includes, and empowers women. Muslim leaders should draw on the rich resources of their theological and intellectual tradition to ensure that the government of the people is the government of all of the people.

We, both in the West and in the Middle East, need to remain vigilant in our pursuit of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We need constant reminders of those who are systematically excluded from the democratic ideal. We need to find ways to hear the voices and not ignore the cries of those who are denied their basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

One simple step: read the stories and see the photos on the website, “The Uprising of Women in the Arab World.” They aim to “highlight the various kinds of discrimination against women in the Arab world.” Their stated goals include:

“Absolute freedom of thought, of expression, of belief or disbelief, of movement, of body, of clothing . . . The right to autonomy, to education, to work, to divorce, to inheritance, to vote, . . . and to full citizenship; . . . absolute equality with men; protection against domestic violence, sexual harassment and all forms of physical and psychological abuse and discrimination facing women today in the Arab world and beyond.

Their slogan: “Together for free, independent and fearless women in the Arab world!”

Since we all need constant reminders, Facebookers can subscribe to Uprising’s Facebook page.

One might think I’m claiming that patriarchy and misogyny are especially Muslim problems. They’re not. Patriarchy and misogyny are human problems. The United States is not immune: the oppression of women (and blacks) has plagued our country since its founding. But true democracies include all people. Democracy: it’s not just for men any more.