Originally Posted by AneeqaCh

Ok so this reply is going to be long but because I have some insight to share so ill reply anyway.
I am a student of CA and I did BA only for shughal and appeared in CE2016 due to parental pressure lol. So pleasure reading is my hobby and I read hours at length and one of my most favorite topics to read is material related to gender studies. That’s the sole reason I appeared in BA, to get degree in subject I know about. So when I opted for women studies (more or less its syllabus was gender studies) I had to search whole Lahore for the relevant books and couldn’t find a single one. So I consulted net, and based on that and my previous knowledge I got 75 marks in part 1 and 78 marks in part 2. Fast forward 2 years and I opted gender studies in CSS hoping that it would be a piece of cake for me. Never have I been more wrong.
So here’s my experience. On 1st glance syllabus seems very general but don’t let it fool you. It is very technical and all-inclusive. You will need to a lot ample time for its preparation. Here is what I did. I joined officers academy for guidance purposes (don’t bother with classes I left after a month and a half). The material available with academy is GREAT and it will cost you about 1000-1500 Rs and it gives you solid 40%-45% syllabus coverage. There were two books I bought from academy in addition to those notes. “Women of Pakistan two steps forward 1 step back” (available as lecture 4 by Sir Zubair Khan). It’s a great book and provide you all the required insight regarding Pakistan’s history (syllabus portion of gender studies of course) and present scenario (up till president Musharraf’s time). Other book was “A review of contemporary thought in women rights with reference to Amina Wadud and Others” by Aiysha Madani (Available under name Women Rights by Sp Hammad). This book gives you more of international scenario from Muslims’ point of view. Keep in mind that syllabus of gender is prepared from secular point of view so be very careful NOT to right from Muslims’ point of view unless specifically asked. But this book is a great read as well and will give you ample material that you can use even in other subjects like Islamiat and Essay.
Even after reading all this your syllabus will NOT be covered and 30%-35% is still left. Now it is up to you that what to do about it. I will advise against using e-books from net as they are not syllabus specifics and more of time wasters. To the point material to prepare for CSS is not available online. Believe me I have MANY international e-books, papers and journals from international universities. What I did was I went to Urdu bazar (by this time books were available like hot cakes :/) and I analyzed all the books available to see which book covers the most syllabus. Here you have to know your personal style regarding study that whether you prefer very short very concise notes or very long and detailed material. I prefer to have thorough and detailed material so that I can pick and choose what to read from where. So I found out Gender studies by Aysha Aslam and M Sohail Bhatti. And to be honest although book is tiresome and very very very lengthy, it does cover more than 90 % of syllabus. So I just covered from here what I couldn’t from other sources mentioned above. I just read from bird’s eye view and marked imp points and studied them. If you want precise notes you can buy the books suggested by other respected members as well. Wish you luck for your future endeavors.