[rayiner]

The role of women in Russian society is very complex, but its not accurate to say that Russian women have more choices post-USSR. The best way to understand the situation is Soviet idealism against the reality of longstanding Russian patriarchy. The Soviets were at the forefront of encouraging women to enter the workforce, making abortion legal in 1920, making divorces easier, providing child care, etc. Those policies suffered fits and starts (Stalin rolled back abortion from 1936-1955) but were still in many ways far ahead of Western Europe. Post-USSR the idealistic stuff died out and there was a strong reversion to patriarchy (not to mention per-capita GDP dropped by half and only returned to peak Soviet levels in 2008).