Gender characteristic of the party and political elite of the southern Urals in the second half of the 1960–1980s

The main task of this paper was to study the representation of women in the party and political elite of the southern Urals during the second half of the 1960s and 1980s, which mainly includes the secretarial corps of regional, city and district committees of the Communist party, as well as the chairmen of Executive committees of the corresponding level of Councils. The research was based on unpublished archival documents, including personal files of nomenclature employees, as well as materials of statistical reports on the qualitative composition and turnover of the leading party staff. In addition, the author has done a serious historiographical work, which analyzes modern historical and political research on the topic of women’s political leadership. It was found that the number of women in the regional management corps was insignificant, which fully corresponded to national trends. It is proved that during the period under study, women were widely represented only in the positions of third secretaries of party committees responsible for the sphere of ideology. At the same time, the study did not reveal artificially created barriers and official installations for restraining women. According to the author, the current situation can be explained by the economic features of the studied period.