I was at a Communal Seuda Shlishit recently where the women were sitting separately from the men. I don't go to Seuda Shlishit at Shul very often but I accept that this is common practice. What I find hard to accept is that we have lost our voices when it comes to singing Zemirot and Bircat HaMazon. I understand and respect the concept of Kol Isha but surely at a communal event where no individual voices are heard, there is nothing wrong with a woman singing praises to Hashem. After all in the last weeks' Sedra Beshalach, Miriam led the women in singing after the Splitting of the Red Sea.
The net result is because women are not encouraged or feel dissuaded to join in they say nothing, at best mutter the words under their breaths in case someone should hear them, or opt out altogether and talk. We don't have to shout or sing at the tops of our voices, but since when was singing praises and thanks to Hashem something that can be looked on as an erotic act?
We are accepting these impositions on us too easily and not questioning them enough. I understand that nobody is going to embarrass their host and hostess by singing enthusiastically if no other women are participating but it seems to me it's all part of the same mindset where women are being pushed to the back and they are being made to feel and are making themselves invisible.
