“we seem to be going around in circles; is it optional or obligatory?”
The Rav said it was a chiyuv for communities to teach women gemara. He was VERY adamant about this and also in his opposition to watered down Jewish studies curricula in girls’ schools. I’m not aware of him ever saying that it was a chiyuv for *every* woman to learn gemara.
‘ “Women learning” ended up being a Machlokes between most Chassidim and Rabbi Miller in one corner, and Rav Kotler and most Litvish Rabbonim in the other’
And in the third corner was the entire Mizrachi movement led by Rav Soloveitchik.