This commentary observes that achieving the EAT-Lancet report's recommended transition to the Planetary Health Diet (PHD) requires social, economic and production transformations which risk exacerbating gender inequalities throughout food systems unless strategies to create a just transition for women and girls are similarly bold and transformative. It sets out how women are disadvantaged across food systems and notes that recent shocks and anti-rights backlash have reversed progress, leaving a persistent gender gap in food insecurity. It then identifies specific channels through which a PHD shift may disadvantage women: a possible increase in women's time burden in food preparation and in labour-intensive practices such as mulching and conservation agriculture; the closing-off of avenues for women to accumulate assets or earn income through small livestock if livestock production is reduced sharply and the possibility that men take over legume and vegetable production should those crops be scaled up or rise in value. The authors identify a set of measures to improve gender equality throughout food systems transformations: decent work, comprising access to formal and higher-value agrifood employment, skills and digital literacy training, transport and childcare services, labour protections and support for collective action, the strengthening of women's land rights at community, household and individual level, collective or rental access to equipment, the co-design of labour-saving technologies, and gender-responsive information channels addressed to men as well as women. These measures are underpinned by gender-transformative approaches, the engagement of men in support of gender equality and institutional change, including women's participation in innovation processes and governance, education, gender budgeting and the collection of sex-disaggregated data.