[Avodah] Women and tefillin

[garry]

On 7/12/2011 5:51 AM, From: Micha Berger<micha at aishdas.org>
>> In both of REMT's cases, there is actually strong reason for a woman
>> /not/  to fulfill those particular mitzvos:
>>
>> At some point during the period of the tannaim (I think during the
>> Tosafists' era in particular), the time men wear tefillin was strictly
>> curtailed. Related to our recent discussion of how much kavanah our
>> rabbis think we are capable of today. Until then, men with desk jobs or
>> who learned all day were wearing tefillin all day as well. Since we lack
>> the necessary yishuv hadaas to think about tefillin for that many hours,
>> we now curtail our tefillin-wearing to the minimum necessary so that we
>> may say Shema without looking like a pack of liars.
>>
>> For men, the minimum is during Shema, and we stretch that to the rest
>> of Shacharis. For women, the minimum is zero.
>
except, perhaps, for women who say Shema. If they say it, the same 
minimum would seem to apply, for the same reason.  Of course you could 
argue Shema is another zman grama mitzvah with a strong reason for women 
not to fulfill it (because then they'd have to put on tefillin and so 
on....)
Also, the ancient ruling that we lack the kevana to wear tefillin except 
when absolutely necessary was made regarding men.  Is there any 
authority that modern women are similarly disqualified?  I don't think 
this can be assumed, especially because women are on a higher  madrega 
than we are.