As someone who has lived in western Germany all his life but has relatives that lived in the GDR I have come to a similar conclusion. The system of the GDR was horrible but there was an inherent gender equality (mostly due to pragmatic concerns of extending the workforce imo). The west had the "luxury" of role-casting women as the stay at home mom. Married women used to require their husbands permission for quite a lot for quite some time in western Germany (they couldn't open a bank account until the late 60s for example iirc).