I happen to like to follow the service that the men are doing and join in
the singing. No one has ever reproached me for doing this. BUT what I do
seems so out of the ordinary that when I read Tara's question, I thought I
would send this follow-up question and ask whether it actually is. If it
turns out that what I am doing is, from some halachic perspectives, "wrong,"
then this makes Tara's question about why women should go to shul at all
even more poignant.
I don't remember whether Tara was talking about shabbat or not--I am. And
BTW, the women at my shul sit in an upstairs gallery, so there is no
pressing problem about Kol Isha because of the distance that I am sitting
from the men below.
Marsha Cohen
Miami, Florida