Dr. Kim Ozano: Hello and welcome to Connecting Citizens to Science, a

global health and development podcast that brings together researchers,

practitioners, and community voices to share insights that drive positive change.

Today, you're listening to our miniseries entitled Backlash, Resistance

and the Path to Gender Justice.

We are exploring how civic spaces are shrinking for those working in the

gender justice field, and what resistance looks like in different contexts.

Today is the third episode, and the focus is allyship.

What does this mean?

Who does it serve?

Allyship is being considerate about others while

understanding that you have a role to play in bringing about greater justice,

solidarity, and equality in the world.

Dr. Kim Ozano: So across this six part mini-series, we're hearing from two

long-term gender justice programmes who are sharing lessons as they learn them.

The first is funded by SIDA and led by IDS.

It's called Countering Backlash, Reclaiming Justice and it's a six-year

research programme aiming to create much needed new knowledge around the complex

phenomena of patriarchal backlash.

The programme's main countries of focus are Bangladesh, Brazil,

India, Kenya, Lebanon and Uganda.

The second programme is called Our Voices, Our Futures, and it's a Global

South led initiative working to amplify the voices of structurally silenced

women across Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan, and Uganda.

And that's funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands and coordinated by CREA.

All of these episodes within this gender mini-series are co-hosted by

researchers from these programmes and each conversation shares

reflections from people on the front lines of gender justice struggles.

So, a word of caution just before we begin the episode does include

discussions of gender-based violence, attacks on reproductive rights

and racism within health systems.

So, take care while listening and step away if you need to.

I'm Dr. Kim Ozano, and I'm joined today by our co-host Ishrat Jahan,

who is from the Countering Backlash, Reclaiming Justice programme, and she

brings experience of gender health and climate justice across South Asia.

In addition, we're joined by two experienced voices in today's

discussion, and collectively, they have decades of experience working

in the gender justice field.

The first is Dr. Abhijit Das, who is a public health physician and is a

long-term advocate for gender equality with over 35 years of work challenging

harmful masculinities in India and beyond.

We are also joined by Professor Cecilia Sardenberg, who is a Brazilian

feminist anthropologist and the co-coordinator of the Countering

Backlash programme in Brazil.

She has decades of experience combining academic research

with grassroots activism.

So, let's get started.

Ishrat,

Perhaps you could set us up for this episode by talking to us a little

bit about what your understanding of allyship is in gender justice.

It's so great to be back and I'm really excited

to be a part of today's episode.

Allyship is a little tricky for me, and I say this fully aware that I'm someone

who's worked in gender, who's worked in women's issues, in the intersections

of health, climate, what have you.

So, you will think that I would be someone who knows exactly what allyship is, but

I'd like to start off this episode by saying that I don't, especially because

we live in such times where you face multiple crises from every direction.

And while I get the sense that allyship is more important than ever, we need to be

really talking about it in a critical way.

We need to understand what it means from a very personal space because

allyship is first and foremost a personal commitment, but it's also

a collective community effort.

So, what does that mean?

How does that happen?

I'm hoping today's conversation would give me some answers as well.

So, there's a very interesting statistics from a 2019 report which is that 77%

of men think that they are really good allies to women, that they're

doing everything they can to support gender equality at home or at work.

But only 41% of women agree that men around them are good allies.

I think that's, that gap in terms of what allyship means to different

people and why we need to be having this conversation in the first place.

So, I think it's good to start the conversation from perhaps

a more personal point of view.

And I wanna ask Abhijit, what does the term allyship or

being an ally mean to you?

You know, allyship as you very correctly pointed out is

all about a personal feeling or.

Uh, I should say realisation because, and the listeners can't see me, I am

an older male, very well educated.

So, in my context in India, I am what you would call upper caste, upper class.

So, I am all boxes ticked for what you would call privilege and, uh, to

understand allyship, the other thing that you have, have to understand is

the way power is distributed in society.

Resources are distributed because of that power and how responsibilities,

obligations, et cetera, get distributed because of various axis of power of class,

caste, gender, sexual orientation, and in India, caste, ethnicity, et cetera.

Now, if I have to be an ally to the overall journey of justice, which is in

a way redistribution of power, where the opportunities and obligations get shared

between different, uh, power groups, which are different social groups,

different gender groups, different ethnic groups, one has to understand

that as an individual who believes in allyship, I have to start sharing.

I have to take commitment towards the equalisation, not only as a legal

principle, not only as a principle which the state has to do, but something that

I have to take individual commitment for.

And for me, this is the beginning of the allyship journey.

That's a fabulous take.

Same question if I can throw to Cecilia?

Cecilia Maria Bacellar Sardenberg: Okay, In Brazil, I am considered a privileged

because I have a PhD and I had the opportunity to go abroad when I was 17

years old, I, I won this scholarship, and I went to live in the United States,

and then I lived there for many years, and I came back to Brazil as a professor.

So I am in a privileged position, but my family's not that rich.

Never been, just middle class.

But I have been involved in several movements, in several struggles in Brazil.

So allyship, you know, I'm not very familiar with this concept.

We don't use it that much in Brazil, uh, with the term.

But with the concept, yeah, that of solidarity, it's a fundamental

principle in women's movements, you know, feminist movements in Brazil in

particular, they express this solidarity in the maxim of sisterhood is powerful.

The very notion of sisterhood implies solidarity, and that of extend your

hand to bring your sister up to where you stand or even above, right?

So I think the collective action perpetuates this, the emergence

of networks of support among women and amplifying women's voices.

And, and I think this is especially important, the context of gender

justice , particularly in the case of confronting gender-based violence

as well as, uh, in the health context when we consider obstetric violence.

Brazil has legal abortion since 1940.

Abortions are, are permitted in cases where the pregnancy is a result of rape,

if the pregnancy, uh, brings a threat to women's life, and also in the case of

where it is proved that the foetus has no possibility of life outside of the uterus.

However, they've been moves to take these rights away from women So, uh, we've been

working a lot in this area, and we've even wrote papers about the backlash.

We have a very good health system in Brazil.

However, racism is very strong within it.

And, uh, we know that black women who go to deliver in these hospitals suffer

discrimination and even violent treatment.

So, uh, this is really important for us to exercise our solidarity

in supporting women, supporting the black women's movements in

Brazil to change the situation.

What we have now started talking about is power, and something

that when I think about all allyship or all the conversations that I've

had in academia, just with friends in communities, a lot of the times when we

talk about allyship, we don't take into account that we are also talking about

power, privilege, and positionality.

The three of us do tick some boxes of privilege.

We are sitting here and speaking of allyship, but I think it's

a good thing, Abhijit that you pointed out, your definition of

allyship with positionality... and

is no other way to talk about allyship.

I'm very clear and to understand allyship further, what one has to understand is

the way gender relationships are changing in the last 50 odd years because we

cannot work with the same definition.

I see the situation now, both in terms of health system aspirations, in terms

of social relationships, and in terms of economic arrangements in the world, they

have affected women and men differently.

The changes that have taken place have affected poor men, excluded men,

men from, uh, ethnic communities, which are marginalised, new groups

of marginalised men where citizenship is being challenged every day.

They are facing huge disadvantages as well, and this has a tremendous

impact on their masculinities and their destructive potential.

And when I talk of allyship and gender justice, it is impossible today sitting

in 2025, to ignore the changes that have taken place in masculinity and how they're

impacting gender justice, how they're impacting women's wellbeing, and not

to consider relationships between men.

Because gender is a relationship.

It is a relationship between men and women.

It is a relationship between sexual diversities.

So, my earnest plea to feminists is to think about gender and think about

how allyship can be built across sexual diversities, across gender

diversities, across class diversities.

And we have to be all aware of our positionality of power because whenever

we have power, no matter what our gender sexual orientation is, if we do not

share, if we do not try to understand who else is below us and how I can help

them, allyship will become meaningless because what has happened today is that we

have created new silos of identity-based politics who are fighting with each other.

Ethnicity has created new silos which have created boundaries between groups

that are not, uh, coming into solidarity.

And each group with more and more rights is extremely conscious about their

rights and start excluding others.

So, we have new groups of people who are getting ignored, even by social groups.

I think you bring up very, very important points.

I think we're on the same wavelength.

The question that comes to my mind is what is your take about how we

can generate more transformative ways of establishing solidarity?

Cecilia Maria Bacellar Sardenberg: I think first of all, that for, for me

being an ally is being supportive and sensitive to other persons and group's

needs, fragilities, which result from discrimination and marginalisation.

We have a lot of men who are supportive and struggle with us, right.

Machismo's still, very strong in Brazil.

And it had incentive is from the extreme right in power.

Uh, but I think one thing that we have to be aware is that in certain instance

and spaces, allyship can be transformed into paternalism or maternalism.

That is into a patronising attitude that does more harm than good, in

other words, speaking or acting towards someone in a condescending manner

that expresses, I think contempt.

So, we have to be a little bit careful.

Right.

And, and I think then that in the current state of the world, solidarity

is more important than ever because we're experiencing a sad moment in

our world history, a moment in which microaggressions are common place, right?

So, we need now to advance our allyship through all available means.

Especially I think that by collective action, hand in hand with those

experienced more closely the effects of new fascism, fighting with them, for

them to put an end to their situation.

Dr. Kim Ozano: Thank you, Cecilia.

I would like to really focus on how we create motivation or, or identify

potential allies to build on as well.

I think you've talked about if that authentic motivation isn't there,

you get this derogatory kind of tokenistic approach to allyship.

So, I guess my question to you is, we started this discussion around

health and health systems, if we think about gender justice, and allyship

within health systems, how can we envision allyship within that sphere?

I think you have hit the nail on the head, allyship has to extend to

understanding men and masculinity because, uh, gender justice includes all genders.

Now, the next point is how do men get affected themselves?

What also is happening at the same time today is the health

system itself is crumbling.

The health system is becoming increasingly privatised.

The health system is taking away all worker benefits to the poor workers.

Men have fewer health needs, I completely buy that, but if you want men at home

to become allies, and that's what's been my work, for women to seek abortion for

women, not to face violence, for women to be able to get good maternal health

services, we have to be empathetic towards men's own concerns as well.

Toxic masculinity is, in a way, the response of a world becoming completely

ignorant of men's changing needs.

The way masculinity is framed, is that men can only be

successful in being aggressive.

Those who are not aggressive are frightened of not

showing their opposition.

So, toxic masculinity becomes visible, and the silent masculinity

of men who are not toxic, who are probably not aggressive, is invisible.

So, part of the job of allyship is to find and surface the men who are

silent, the men who are concerned, but are afraid as well, because

frightened men, non-aggressive men, do not have a space in the world.

We cannot consider men as the enemy.

They're part of the problem.

They're part of the huge part of the problem.

So, they have to be addressed, but they're not the enemy.

Cecilia Maria Bacellar Sardenberg: You know, there are good men struggling for

us in Congress, although Congress mostly masculine, there's mostly men there.

In Brazil, very few women get into politics, they don't get the support

from their parties and all that, but because of gender-based political

violence, you know, has driven women away from being in politics.

I think we have to make men understand that machismo, that all this violence,

it is not good for them either.

Showing allyship with those men who are at the bottom so, they know that the

fight for gender justice is a struggle that they have to be in as well.

I think when we're talking now about power, we are, we

are saying that gender justice is also now a struggle across all these

countries, India, Bangladesh, Brazil.

Across all these country context, we are talking about rising up to

fascism and recognising that gender is being weaponised by fascist

systems and how we can counter it.

I have a final question for you, which is what would your advice be about

building solidarity in these times and connecting across movements, so we are not

stuck in the silos that you had referred to previously in this conversation?

Since we are talking of health systems, I think low hanging

fruit that is possible is to do training of health providers because

power is also implicit in the provider client or provider user relationship.

What my experience is in India, and especially for the rural and the poor

communities, is that social relationships, implicit social assumptions of power

and privilege are as much within health providers as within society.

So it is extremely important to tailor what we could call soft training skills.

This is something we could push for, for making health systems,

per se, more sensitive to the, uh, sort of discrimination that

happens and the health system itself becomes an ally for gender justice.

Dr. Kim Ozano: So, really raising understanding of the gender

injustices that are taking place within the health system itself, and

challenging social assumptions of power within the training early on

to start building that solidarity.

Cecilia Maria Bacellar Sardenberg: I agree because that's

happened, in Brazil as well.

I think it's very important that uh, people in the health system

be trained to think in terms of allyship right from the beginning.

In Brazil medical schools they have the public schools, which are free.

Right?

But medical school, a, a private one, it is very expensive.

Only the rich can afford it.

So, you are having doctors that come out who have no understanding of what

really goes on in the world and how people suffer, how different class

situations bring suffering to people.

All medical schools, all nurses, schools have to have a discussion of

gender justice, social justice, and be introduced to the notion of, of allyship.

I think that's the only way that you're gonna build a

better health systems, right?

Dr. Kim Ozano: So, what I'm hearing from both of you is we need to start

systematising allyship and understanding of gender justice and how privilege

enacts within not only the health system, but within society, the health

system mirrors society, so we have to start building that understanding

from the bottom up again, because we have this changing global landscape

that we all live in at the moment.

Ishrat, at the beginning of this discussion, you said understanding

allyship is difficult.

Do you have any take homes for us after this conversation?

I think this conversation has been very good for

me because I've learned a lot from both of your collective experiences.

So, thank you, uh, for giving those perspectives.

One thing I am taking away from this conversation is the first thing that

we discussed, it's that it starts from a place of personal commitment.

So, from the answers that I'm hearing from both of you on what your advice is,

it's going to have to start with people changing how they feel about others, how

they feel about building communities.

It has to start with people having empathy and having a sense of vulnerability.

To reach out to each other, and have the ability to care for each other because

the systems around us are falling apart.

So, I think that's a fundamental takeaway that I think we should keep in mind.

Dr. Kim Ozano: I think that's a great summary of what we've heard today.

And you know, the key point there is, is to care and have

empathy for each other as well.

So, I think moving forward I will think about taking an active role in

learning about experiences, amplifying them and supporting the movements

and rights of others moving forward.

So, for now, thank you to my guests for your amazing contribution, and thank you

to Ishrat as well for being a co-host with me today Today's conversation

has really explored the complexity of allyship in the fight for gender justice.

We've talked about what it means to share power, to challenge harmful norms, and

to build solidarity across different forms of privilege and marginalisation.

We have heard how allyship can be both deeply personal and

structurally transformative.

In our next episode, we turn to the structural barriers faced by women

with disabilities, and we talk about how disability rights activism is

intersecting with gender justice.

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