The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) employed women extensively during the Second World War. In total, about 800,000 women served from 1941-1945. Notably, the RKKA allowed women to serve in combat roles, although the majority of women were support staff and noncombatants such as nurses, telephone operators, and doctors (with that in mind, many of these 'noncombat' roles were exposed to the dangers of war regardless - telephone operators were killed when command posts were shelled, and paramedics and nurses often took fire while retrieving the wounded from the front lines). There were several notable all- or majority-female combat units; for example, the all-female 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Regiment flew 24,000 sorties and produced two dozen Heroes of the Soviet Union. One of the separate sniper brigades in the Reserves of the Supreme High Command was composed entirely of women, as well. Women featured prominently in Soviet propaganda, particularly ace snipers such as Lyudmila Pavlichenko (a claimed 309 kills, though for some needed context on the cult of the sniper in the RKKA see this post by /u/georgy_k_zhukov.) However, the presence of women as combatants in the RKKA should not be taken as evidence that the egalitarian Soviet social reforms had swept away sexism. Sexual assault was rampant, and even the frequent consensual relations were tinged with misogyny and double standards. One soldier wrote home in 1943 that "in the army, they regard women like gramophone records...you play it and play it and then throw it away." Officers as well as enlisted men frequently took "marching field wives", pokhodno-polevye zheny or PPZh, a play on the PPSh submachine gun. Although these relationships were initiated by men more often than by women, women bore the brunt of the societal condemnation. From Merridale's Ivan's War: "In fact, the front-line women faced prejudice based on their wild reputation. One describer what happened after she married her wartime sweetheart. Her new husband's parents were furious. 'An army girl,' they barked. 'Why, you have two younger sisters. Who will marry them now?' It was assumed that women slept with officers as a way of getting on...When the coveted medal 'for military service' (za boevye zaslugi) was worn by women, it was jokingly said to be 'for sexual service' (za polevye zaslugi)." However, despite the prejudice, many of this women volunteered for service for the same reasons that Soviet men did. A sniper named Iuliia Zhukova reflects thus on her voluntary service: “I had, you see, volunteered for the army, guided by one desire - to defend the country and my people.”

######Sources and Recommended Reading: Alexievich, Svetlana. The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II. New York: Random House, 2017.

Bhuvasorakul, Jessica Leigh. Unit Cohesion Among the Three Soviet Women’s Air Regiments During World War II. Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 2004.

Markwick, Roger D. “‘A Sacred Duty’: Red Army Women Veterans Remembering the Great Fatherland War, 1941–1945.” Australian Journal of Politics & History 54, no. 3 (September 1, 2008) 403-420.

Merridale, Catherine. Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. New York: Picador, 2006
--- “Culture, Ideology, and Combat in the Red Army, 1939-45,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no.2 (April 2006) 306-324

I have not had the opportunity to read it yet, but Roger Markwick also has a book on the subject, the aptly-titled Soviet Women on the Frontline in the Second World War. Based on the quality of his journal article cited here, I feel comfortable recommending this book as well.