The Empty Chair: Why We See Fewer Female Doers

While hosting conversations with different guests on The Doers Global, one pattern quietly kept repeating itself. The guest list/podcast published has rarely reflected equal numbers of women and men. Not half, not even a quarter; female doers have appeared few and far in between.

We have continuously worked on bridging this gap, but this pattern doesn’t seem to disappear. It raises an uncomfortable question. Are fewer women interested in stepping into the limelight? Or were we simply failing to reach the female Doers who were already out there?

One time, we had a round table, and the female guest was more nervous than the male guest. She was very conscious of what she was saying; she didn’t focus on the camera as much. The men, on the other hand, we have hosted spoke freely, almost instinctively owning the space.

The question became harder to ignore when we launched Become a Doer, an academic initiative by Doers Global. During our CAT sessions (Content as a Tool), participation followed a similar pattern. Fewer women signed up.

Let’s dive deeper in this newsletter to find out why there are fewer female Doers on the podcast than we’d like.

That pushed us to look beyond our own program and ask a larger question.
Is this just our experience, or does it reflect something bigger?

The numbers suggest it is bigger.

Across more than 190 countries in the world, only around 30 women currently serve as Heads of State or Government across 28 countries. That is roughly 14 percent of global leadership, representing half of the world’s population.

Even in Nepal, where constitutional provisions attempt to correct this imbalance, the gap remains visible.

Nepal’s 2015 Constitution mandates that at least 33 percent of seats in the Federal Parliament be held by women. But much of this representation comes through the Proportional Representation (PR) system, not through direct elections.

In the most recent elections, only 14 women were elected through the First Past The Post (FPTP) system, roughly 8 percent of directly elected seats. While slightly higher than previous elections, it still shows that political parties remain hesitant to place women in seats they believe are truly winnable.

Nepal did eventually have its first female Prime Minister, Sushila Karki, but that moment came more than 75 years after the start of democratic politics in the country. And it emerged during a period of political instability rather than a normal electoral transition. It raised an uncomfortable question: why do women reach leadership only when systems are already in crisis?

The same pattern appears in corporate leadership.

In Nepal’s commercial banking sector, women make up roughly 46 percent of entry-level employees, and in some urban branches the number even crosses 50 percent.

But the higher you move in the hierarchy, the fewer women you see.

Only around 23 percent of senior management positions are held by women. Among Nepal’s more than twenty commercial banks, the number of female CEOs fluctuates between zero and two at any given time.

Globally, the picture is similar. Only around 6 percent of CEOs at the world’s largest banks are women.

So the issue clearly isn’t participation at the starting line. Women are entering institutions in large numbers.

The question is why so few remain visible at the top.

Part of the answer lies in something subtle that begins much earlier than careers.

During one conversation, Pranaya KC, Marketing Head of Daraz, pointed out how early social conditioning shapes confidence in ways we rarely notice. Even something as ordinary as school uniform rules can quietly reinforce differences.

Boys wear trousers. They run freely, sit however they want, occupy space without thinking about it. Girls, on the other hand, often grow up being reminded to sit carefully, cross their legs, adjust their skirts, and behave in a way that minimizes attention.

It sounds trivial. But over time, it builds a quiet muscle memory.

Boys grow up comfortable taking up space.
Girls grow up practicing containment.

This early conditioning carries into professional environments.

Rosha Pokahrel experienced this very literally. She holds a PhD in signal processing and writes highly technical research on neural networks. Her work contributes to the future of artificial intelligence. Yet in many technical conferences and meetings, she found herself as the only woman in a room filled with dozens of men.

In one meeting, she realized something striking. There was no chair for her at the table. She had to walk outside the room, drag a chair inside, and wedge herself into the meeting. It felt almost symbolic. Like being invited to play musical chairs, only to realize the organizers never placed a chair for you in the first place.

That moment made something clear. The problem wasn’t just individual capability. It was a structural design.

Many professional systems were built at a time when women were simply not expected to be present in those rooms. So the question is not only how women can succeed within those systems. It is also how those systems must evolve.

Another reason women often step away from leadership tracks is less visible but equally powerful: the unequal distribution of domestic responsibility.

At the peak of their professional careers, many highly capable women find themselves balancing demanding jobs with disproportionate expectations around childcare and household work.

The result is not a lack of talent. It is exhaustion.

Yet many women leaders emphasize that solving this problem cannot be framed as a “women only” issue. Empowerment that excludes men is incomplete. If the current structures were largely built by men, then reshaping them also requires men to actively participate in that change. The people who built the room must help redesign it.

At the same time, one tool repeatedly appears in conversations with women leaders: financial independence.

Developing specialized, market ready skills creates leverage. When your expertise is valuable, you gain the ability to walk away from environments that refuse to make space for you. Financial independence gives women the freedom to say no. And that freedom is powerful.

So what does all of this mean for young women looking at leadership today?

Perhaps the goal is not simply to survive in systems that were never designed for them. True leadership might mean something more ambitious. Instead of squeezing into existing chairs at the table, the next generation of women may choose to redesign the table itself. Not just adapting to the system.

But rebuilding it so the next generation never has to drag their own chair into the room.

Until then, we look forward to hosting more Doers. If you know a woman whose story deserves to be heard, feel free to suggest her name. And if you believe you are a Doer yourself and would like to be part of the podcast, we would love to hear from you.