Women Managers in Neoliberal Japan

Swee-Lin Ho is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include the neoliberal transformations of work, new practices of friendship; changing cityscapes and the urban night space; ethnographic field methods and ‘studying up’ approach; globalization of East Asian popular culture; emergent corporate cultures; the commercialization of intimacy; social formations of gender; and the political economy of the global classical music industry.She worked for many years in various international cities as auditor, financial journalist and corporate executive before completing her graduate studies at Sophia University and later the University of Oxford. She has taught in South Korea, where she was also a Korea Foundation Research Fellow studying the conflicting desires of gendered selfhood, nationhood and cultural identities through the globalization of contemporary Korean popular culture.

The book makes a huge contribution to research on gender equality which is a pressing issue in Japan and is increasingly attracting considerable attention in government, media, business, academia, and society. This publication is highly focused and comprehensive yet condensed and well integrated. As such, it is an outstanding work, rich in detail and sophisticated in analysis.GABRIEL EWEJE, Labour and Industry

• 1 ‘Womenomics’: To Make Women Shine or Die?2 In the Media: As Flowers, Parasites, Loser Dogs and Demons3 In the Company of Co-Workers: Performing Gender and Drinking for Survival4 In the Office: As Nominal Managers and Corporate Props5 To the State: As Victims and Perpetrators of Power Harassment 6 A Shiny or More Precarious Future?Appendix: Chart of Subjects’ Profiles