“How can it be bad for Jews to learn Torah, under any circumstance? “
It isn’t. Even learning Torah with the wrong motivation will eventually lead to learning Torah with the right motivation.
“in our generation when women are highly educated secularly, get very important jobs, and work outside the home, shouldn’t they also use these opportunities of advancement to learn?”
Lots of gedolim have said pretty much just that. Exactly WHAT women should learn is a machloket; Rav Soloveitchik z’tz’l insisted that women learn the same things as men, in the same classes. (Yes, he was a big supporter of co-ed classes and even put it in writing.)