The female face of Russian politics. Between East and West

Abstract

The article compares the so-called political face of women in Western, Eastern countries and Russia. The main characteristics of women politicians in Western countries are: common descent and personal qualities as means to achieve a high position, specialized education and a good place to work before entering politics, early and late political careers, strong family ties with a minimum of children, and the high effectiveness of political decisions with a low failure rate. Women politicians in the Eastern group of countries are determined by heredity and continuity of political power, specialized or humanitarian education, a rather late start of a political career, often relying on a spouse, strong family ties and small families, a high percentage of political scandals, corruption charges and low management efficiency. Women politicians in Russia are more often characterized by a common descent with high personal qualities as means to achieve a political office and a specialized education, including at the level above the bachelor’s degree, they have to enter the political path early, sacrificing the opportunity to have an alternative job, the possibility of having more than one child or interrupting the career of a politician, while the effectiveness of the work of Russian women politicians is high, although political scandals are not rare.

Thus, with a greater orientation of women politicians in Russia towards the West, they have both Eastern and their own personal characteristics associated with various reasons, the elimination of which will improve the political sphere for the advancement of women in this area.