My (limited) understanding is that the soviet union was generally pretty pro feminist vs modern russia which refers to it as a "mortal sin", so i dont think the two are comparable culturally. But im not well read on the subject.
USSR was also officially (rural people kept their beliefs though) atheist. Current (I wouldn't call it "modern") Russia seems to be quite Christian Orthodox.
Not just „rural“ people. Unless „urban“ is limited to Moscow. Where soviet elite had to hide church activities even harder than their counterparts in periphery.
There was an attempt to remove religion in early era, but Stalin put an end to that and brought back Orthodox church. Later there was some lip service and lame attempts, but not that serious. Although party members would still get in trouble for openly celebrating christmas. Which many people did anyway, just privately behind closed curtains.
I don't think the so called "second wave" feminism, driven in large part by housewives rebelling against boredom and expectations of passiveness, got much traction in the Soviet Union. In my country, there were certainly conflicts between the older, socialist oriented feminism and the second wave.
My mother told me she left the women's front because it had been "couped" by socialists. In particular, they opposed pension rights for unpaid care work, because they believed that would encourage women to stay at home, and my mom thought it was a lot more important to value the work women had done than to push them into the wage economy.
Looking into it, though, I think maybe the women's front was socialist dominated from the start, and it was 68er, second wave-ish women like her who were "entering".
Important detail -- not just can, but have to work. Not working in soviet union was a crime with only cop-out being parental leave (for women only) or retirement. Women also were present in the military, but didn't have to. Regarding specific occupations -- there was a lot of de-facto segregation, with some jobs being exclusively done by women.
Non-obvious consequence here -- if everybody has to work and compensation is as flat as possible, there are no partner alimonies, which obviously affects gender dynamics. Sprinkle in WW2 which wreked gender balance for generations, you get lasting changes in a society.
I think the change of mind could be attributed leadership trying to recover population growth after a series of demographic collapses of varying scales (ww2, famine, Brezhnevian Stagnation) which really hit birth rates.
