The paper I cited does not claim that USSR had managed to transform an otherwise very prejudice society into an equal egalitarian one. Instead, soviets focused on full employment AND full Labor participation as part of ideology, leaving less room for contradictions such as gender discrimination on employment or education itself. Salary and promotion discrimination remained as there ideology provided less cover. Following the collapse, Russian society reverted to its old prejudice self. Lookup домострой if you don't believe me.
Another less from USSR for gender/family stays equality is that childcare access makes a huge difference. In USSR, parents were guaranteed state funded care from the point maternity leave ended to college. On paper that still exists, but in practice it's a shadow of what it used to be.
> Since the Communist Revolution of 1917 and during the ensuring Soviet times, the role of women in engineering and engineering education was strong with almost 60% of the engineers being women. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian women in these engineering careers has fallen to below 40% of the engineering workforce with a continuing downward trend.
I had completely forgotten about this - my own mothers' class in Moscow Aviation Institute (rocket engineers) in early 80s had more women studying than men.