xGendered Work in Asian Citiescorporate restructuring, the ew managerialism� and increased exibility�in organizational structures? What issues exist around leadership and management for professional women in organizations? And what organizational styles are still the preferred or dominant ones in organizations? Are they still characterized by the 榗ultures of masculinity�described by other authors? To what extent are women leaders and managers acceptable within organizational cultures, and as acceptable to male and female employees? She is concerned to identify both the organizational factors and the wider global factors that can be identid as advancing the position of women in leadership and management and in hindering such advancement, and takes us through some cases of her informants involvement in leadership in education and in politics. Her dings, in fact, show that where they do achieve leadership positions, women are conent, capable leaders. She concludes that the obstacles to women advancement in both organizational life and in academia in both cities parallel those reported in the West, although the close links between corporate families and business have allowed women in Hong Kong and Singapore to capitalize on these to some extent and reach higher levels of corporate life. She also wants to know to what extent equal opportunities and anti-discrimination are addressed in legislative frameworks in Hong Kong and Singapore and debated within social policy debates there. To look at their impact on social policy debates, and patterns of social change in both cities, she takes us through a discussion of demographic patterns, including fertility rates, marriage patterns, numbers of children, and the proportions of singles and married at different ages as well as the numbers of women in workforce. She also details the involvement of some of her informants in such legislative change, including the Bill of Rights and equal opportunity legislation in Hong Kong: such developments may account for a greater willingness by her informants there to apply a gender analysis than she found in Singapore. A particular strength of the book is the way it gives us a direct insight into professional women everyday lives in both cities through the interviews with her sample. As Brooks describes them, the personal and social issues confronting professional women in senior positions are formidable. She explores the concerns raised for professional women around being single, marriage and family obligations, spousal attitudes to career, parenting /care giving and household, attitudes to spouse/ partner career, and support structures in the home to assist women in their career. The book illustrates well the dynamics of the evolving relationships between amily�expectations and actually lived experiences of many of these professional women. It also illustrates some of the heated cultural politics surrounding women, work and family in both cities, not least the continuing heritage of Confucianism. In both places, the media have been energetic in discussing single women and low birth rates. Although the cultural assumptions are that 榗areer�women are mostly single, Brooks in fact found that this stereotype is the exception rather than the rule. Many such women were married and inevitably involved in often precarious work/life balancing acts. While work is an increasing source of identity for many of her informants, in Hong Kong, for example, women faced a backlash from the media: in the face of the
