.... the fielding of female soldiers was a resounding success, and the reality that most "badass Soviet women" were little more than pin-up girls serving as a commissar's fucktoy cannot be acknowledged.
It's a bit more complex than that: the ethos if theoretical equality between the sexes was worsened by a utterly dreadful combat situation. Most of the male Soviet soldiers and officers did not
like the presence of female soldiers (we're still talking about people born at the beginning of the 20th century after all) but the necessity of "man"power was overwhelming. It is fairly noticeable how in the after-war years despite some token representation the role of females in the Soviet army was quickly put under the rug, you don't see advance in female representation in the 50ies.
While a minority was indeed used as "fucktoy" - the utter lack of concern for sex education in the Red Army is an interesting subject -they were
needed because the situation was
dire. You don't put children in assembly lines for SMGs because you like the lack of quality control. You don't put women in the frontline and in outdated airplanes because you like it, you do it because
you need to. Helped of course by the socialist ethos, one has to consider that the other great "we're fucked" plan, the Volkssturm, pretty much refused female participation out of ideological reasons and they needed meat far more than the Soviets.
Many of 'em also died a terrible death (and for sure they weren't pin-ups), the celebrated Aleksandra Samusenko died like a dog crushed under a tank. The Soviets did
not particularly like the "BADASS MANKILLER YASSS QUEEN" perspective, and it was alien to them: it was more of a blend of military needs, Communist ideology and slavic misogyny.
