Your two questions are not necessarily related. If a yid discusses a sugya, or even thinks casually about a sugya, he is mekayem mitzvas talmud torah. (Machlokes if you need to make birchas hatorah on hirhur, but you are definitely mekayem limud hatorah).
There is no issur for women to be mekayem talmud torah. They are not allowed to learn gemara. So I don’t know what constitutes that.