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When the public votes directly for legislators, it selects women at almost twice the rate as when functional constituencies pick a lawmaker.
To political scientist Ma Ngok,  that's a reflection that men still dominate the corporate world and other key networks that make up Hong Kong's establishment. 
Even in the teaching, social work and nursing professions - where women  play a major role - the electoral representatives for these fields have always been men, he noted. 
'I think a lot of people do not accept women participating very strongly in politics, so it still creates a lot of scepticism and will need some time to change,' Ma said.
In most areas of government - the executive, judiciary, and the legislature - women hold just one in five of the city's top positions, a South China Morning Post analysis shows. 
In the Legislative Council, nearly 20 per cent of the 60  lawmakers are women. They occupy nearly 25 per cent of Legco's geographical constituency seats, which are elected directly. This is nearly double the female representation in functional constituency seats (four out of 30), whose occupants are chosen by corporate and professional  voters.  
Legco's percentage of women is on par with the US and  Britain, but lags far behind European countries such as Sweden and Norway. 
Louise Edwards,  an academic at the University of Hong Kong, says  the city's standards of literacy, wealth and education cry out for the same level of female representation as found in New Zealand and Scandinavian countries, with parliaments of 35 to 45 per cent women.
'The countries that Hong Kong wants to be compared with are really the advanced wealthy nations that are like Hong Kong, and that's where I think Hong Kong could be doing better,' Edwards said.
Hong Kong's two most popular lawmakers, both female, are Audrey Eu Yuet-mee and Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee,  according to an October poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong. The random telephone survey measured levels of recognition and support for legislators.
'I do think, for voters, they don't really care about your gender,' Legco member Tanya Chan said. 'As long as you have the ability, and they have the confidence in you, then they will vote for you.'
Yet that popularity does not translate into equality when it comes to governmental leadership. 
The Executive Council, whose members are appointed by the chief executive, is 18 per cent female.
In the judiciary, women make up 21 per cent of judges in the High Court, District Court and the Court of Final Appeal. On the Court of Final Appeal, all 21 judges are men, appointed by either Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen or former chief Tung Chee-hwa. 
Societal attitudes continue to hold women back from government leadership roles, according to veteran Legco member Emily Lau Wai-hing.  'Women don't fight for it, maybe their families don't want them to fight for it, and society as a whole does not really recognise the fact and does not do things to facilitate these women rising to leadership,' she said.
In fact, a lot fewer women run for office than men.  In the 2008 Legco elections, 32 women and 110 men ran for 30 directly elected seats. Seven women were elected - 23 per cent of the geographical constituencies. 
As a region, Asia-Pacific governments have the second-lowest female participation rate in the world, behind only the Arab states, according to a 2010 report issued by the United Nations Development Programme.  
Japan's gender gap is particularly glaring. Despite the country's modern trappings, females hold only 11 per cent of legislative seats, according to UN data. 
Hong Kong's female representation in Legco is slightly lower than that of the  National People's Congress (21 per cent). 
Political scientist Ma said the greater female presence in Beijing might be the result of affirmative action policies.
In June, the Hong Kong government set a target of 30 per cent for women on public-sector boards, advisory committees and other  bodies. 
A previous benchmark target of 25 per cent had been attained for government committees on the whole, although numerous individual public boards still have no women.
Quotas can be controversial. But Edwards said they gave women a degree of certainty that they could make it to the top. 'Some people might say it's a bit patronising to women, but it's actually an institutional lever that makes it possible for women to get in,' she said. 
Sophia Kao Ching-chi,  who chairs the Women's Commission, a government body, said the government should do a lot more to advance the status of women. 'The ultimate goal has to be 50 per cent,' she said.
Nine years ago, the Women's Commission designed a gender mainstreaming process - a checklist procedure that shows whether a proposed policy meets the needs of both genders. But it is voluntary and the government has been slow to put it into practice.
'There is more lip service than substance,' said Fanny Cheung, a former commission member who now heads the gender studies programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  
One notable exception to the government's overall gender imbalance is found among the top civil servants. The city's policy bureaus are run by nine men and eight women. These permanent secretaries are appointed, and most spent their careers advancing through the civil service, currently 35 per cent female. Promotion is based on seniority and merit.  
'Something like the old boys' club doesn't exist in the civil service,' Kao said. 'It is much more open and objective in deciding who moves up.'
Edwards said history showed that having women in power led to different types of legislation, such as policies that benefited the welfare of women and children.
'There are things that are common to women that make them have collective political interests,' she said. 'Whoever you get in [government], whatever type of person, that will definitely change the political landscape.' 
Lau said people believed that women would demand more transparency, more accountability and less corruption. 'So it's very sad,' the veteran lawmaker said, 'that for so long in the top echelons of the business and political sectors, women were hardly represented.'
Irene Jay Liu, Eldes Tran, Chris Ip, Malik Yusuf, Vivian Li, Stephanie Kwan and Nathan Griffiths contributed to this report
This is the concluding part of our series on the role of women in running Hong Kong. It forms part of the South China Morning Post's WhoRunsHK project, which examines the connections among the most influential people and organisations in the city. For more, go to http://topics.scmp.com/news/whorunshk/



Still too few women in leadership and politics