We explore what allyship really means in the fight for gender justice. Co-hosted by Ishrat Jahan from the Countering Backlash, Reclaiming Gender Justice programme, the conversation unpacks how power, privilege, and positionality shape allyship, and how solidarity must move beyond tokenism to be truly transformative. Our guests reflect on allyship within health systems, across movements, and in the face of patriarchal and political backlash in Brazil and India. Part of our mini-series Backlash, Resistance and the Path to Gender Justice, this episode highlights lived experiences and fresh perspectives from long-standing gender justice advocates.In this episode: Ishrat Jahan - Research Fellow at the Centre for Gender and Sexual and Reproductive Health at BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ishrat’s research focuses on the intersection of gender, health, and environmental issues. Ishrat is involved in national and international projects exploring the impact of climate change on women’s health, adaptive practices in marginalised communities, and Global South-led curricula in higher education.Dr. Abhijit Das - Consultant, SAHAYOG, IndiaDr. Abhijit Das is a public health physician with over 35 years of work on gender equality and understanding harmful masculinities. He is a co-founder of the MenEngage Global Alliance and COPASAH, and has worked extensively on building bottom-up knowledge for health systems reform. He is currently an Independent Researcher and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.Professor Cecilia Sardenberg - Professor of Anthropology and Feminist Studies, NEIM, Federal University of Bahia, BrazilProfessor Cecilia Sardenberg is a Brazilian feminist scholar and activist who has worked at the intersection of academia and grassroots organising for more than five decades. She is one of the founders of NEIM, the Women’s Studies Research Centre at the Federal University of Bahia, and currently co-coordinates the Countering Backlash, Reclaiming Justice programme in Brazil.Useful links:Nucleus of Interdisciplinary Women's Studies of the Federal University of Bahia (NEIM) MenEngage Alliance - MenEngageCREA - Feminist Human Rights - Our Voices Our FuturesCountering Backlash - Reclaiming Gender JusticeWant to hear more podcasts like this?Follow Connecting Citizens to Science on your usual podcast platform or YouTube to hear more about current research and debates within global health and development.The podcast cuts across disciplines, including health systems strengthening, gender and intersectionality, tropical diseases (NTDs, TB, Malaria), maternal and child healthcare (antenatal and postnatal care), mental health and wellbeing, vector-borne diseases, climate change and co-production approaches. If you would like your project or programme to feature in an episode or miniseries, get in touch with the producers of Connecting Citizens to Science, the SCL Agency.