[int_19h]

The big problem in USSR specifically (I can't speak for other Sovbloc countries) was that the messaging was never consistent. Early revolutionary period was very heavy on gender equality, and very sincere. But under Stalin, there was a big reversal towards "traditional family" and all that stuff, largely to encourage rapid population growth - so they banned abortions, for example.

After that, it was some weird state in the middle - for example, in my mother's time, abortions were not banned in the USSR, but they were heavily discouraged and socially shunned. For another example, conscription was always all-male. In general, it was accepted that some jobs are just "male jobs"; e.g. Soviets had a token female cosmonaut in Tereshkova and later in Savistkaya, but overall the space program was a blatant sausage fest.

I do wonder sometimes what would have happened if the original revolutionary message of gender equality was never reversed or diluted, and lasted at full strength long enough that there was at least one generation growing up without seeing anything else.