CAIRO — There is a fierce battle raging in Egypt, and it’s not the one between Islamists and military rulers — the two factions that dominate most coverage of my country these days. The real battle, the one that will determine whether Egypt frees itself of authoritarianism, is between the patriarchy — established and upheld by the state, the street and at home — and women, who will no longer accept this status quo.

In recent weeks, Egypt has criminalized the physical and verbal harassment of women, setting unprecedented penalties for such crimes. But celebrations for the election and inauguration of our new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, were marred by sexual assaults, including a gang rape, in Tahrir Square. Last week, Human Rights Watch released a report on what it has called an “epidemic of sexual violence” in Egypt. A few days later, yet more sexual violence took place at a march against sexual violence.

In March, I interviewed dozens of women in Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Tunisia for a BBC World Service radio documentary called “The Women of the Arab Spring.” Many told me that very few things had changed for the better in their lives since the uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010, but that the revolutions had created a new and combustible power: the power of their rage and the need to use it.

“My personal revolution began 11 years ago, when I began to say ‘no’ to many things in my family,” said Nesma el-Khattab, 24, a lawyer who works at a center for women and children in a disadvantaged neighborhood in northern Cairo. “Then the revolution came and I began to say ‘I demand.”’ Ms. Khattab was subjected to genital cutting at age 9, and says she has threatened to “turn the house upside down” if her younger sisters are also cut. According to a 2008 demographic health survey in Egypt, 91.1 percent of women ages 15 to 49 had been subjected to genital mutilation.