Rohit John Chettri
Musician
Throughout history, women have faced numerous obstacles in their pursuit of leadership roles, from social and cultural biases to systemic barriers in the workplace. Despite making significant strides towards equality, women still face challenges such as lack of representation in leadership positions, gender stereotypes and biases, and lack of support and resources to help them overcome these obstacles. However, despite these challenges, women have demonstrated time and again their remarkable ability to lead and succeed in the face of adversity.
From world leaders to entrepreneurs, women have proven that they possess the same drive, determination, and leadership skills as their male counterparts.
As a society, it is our responsibility to support and empower women to reach their full potential in leadership roles. By breaking down the barriers that prevent women from achieving their goals and providing them with the tools and resources they need to succeed, we can create a more equitable and just world for all.
The barriers that women face in leadership positions are real and significant, but women have shown that they are more than capable of overcoming these obstacles and achieving great things. By supporting and empowering women, we can unlock the full potential of half of the world’s population and create a brighter, more prosperous future for us all.
Ghana Shyam Gurung
Country Representative, WWF
The socio-cultural construct of gender, gender roles and expectations, which still overburdens women, creates barriers for women’s leadership. For instance, time consuming, physically and emotionally demanding unpaid care and household responsibilities are still not equitably shared among partners, which impacts women professionally. Since male colleague’s opinions are valued and heard more as authoritative, due to internalised unconscious biases, women need to work hard for their opinions to have heard and valued professionally and at home. This also impacts access to growth opportunities and hence, women constantly and tiresomely battle, both personally and structurally, to secure skills development and growth opportunities for higher leadership roles. Therefore, it is critical for our male dominated society with patriarchy mindset of all genders to change their attitude and accept the new realities of technological advancement enabling female leadership equal to men if not better under the need of multi-tasking and performing diversified functional roles to achieve greater social and economic transformations with inter- generational sustainability.
Binny Sebastian
General Manager, Meghauli Serai, Chitwan
There are plenty of thesis on why women run into glass ceiling and we lack women in leadership role. The unambiguous truth is that most women are afraid to succeed. Most women start well and most are technically skilled and have fantastic knowledge but as they reach the middle of the ladder, they are suddenly afraid of growing. The fear of change and responsibility comes between the growth. Taking charge of their career growth is another aspect which slows or stops them, what this means is that compared to men who would just keep going and not necessarily will have to consult with family, women on the other hand physiologically feels compelled to consult with their spouse or family for their career advancement. Unconscious bias and gender stereotyping along with male competence assumption also comes as barrier for women leadership.
Dr. Sudeep Rauniar
Founder, The startup Network
Medical Doctor
I personally see the absence of encouragement to make them believe in themselves and limited advanced career opportunities which is creating resistance to unleash their potential to the fullest.
