This article analyses discussions of gender equality, women’s empowerment, and women’s rights in the United Nations Committee for World Food Security (CFS). This article analyses how gender inequality has been understood and addressed by different constituencies in the reformed CFS and finds that there has been a push to challenge empowerment discourses by instead emphasizing women’s rights. These efforts to advance women’s rights in the context of food security and nutrition includes calling for attention to systemic economic, political and cultural inequalities and a repoliticization of gender inequality. This article highlights these debates about gender inequality, reflects on the broader implications for food system governance, and poses new questions for feminist scholars of international relations.