computer777 -“If it’s a mitzvah, why does it bother you? It’s not your business which mitzvos they pick. Even if you think it’s better to do something else with their time, it’s not your place to critisize.”
Your response seems to be an emotional one, not a logical one. But even so I’ll respond with logic.
If you have been reading the posts, you’d have seen that I hold that women are Not allowed to learn Gemmora.
This post above was going to s/o who holds that they are.
As far as which to pick (Mitzvos) -I’ll reply simply that even if their learning is the same as men, it wouldn’t be so simple that they can say -Well I’m learning now -so I can’t do other Mitzvos. The Halacha is if there are others to do these Mitzvos, then you can do learning instead. If there aren’t, then the other Mitzvos take precedence. There definitely is a demand for people to feed sick people and to help needy people in their homes. Whether this demand requires that we have to take guys out of Yeshiva to do this – is doubtful. But for women to say -“I’m learning now so I don’t have to do these things of Chessed” -would be ridiculous.
Their learning would not take precedence over these other Mitzvos!
“Additionally, they may be learning after they worked hard a whole day, and this is their relaxing time before they go to bed.”
Again, even if this were a man he isn’t allowed to learn like this. The Torah requires s/o to learn with many conditions, eg. with fear and awe, etc. You can’t curl up with a Gemmora like you do with a book. OTOH, some people are too Frum to go on the Net, or read Goyishe books or even Ch’vs watch TV/Movies to relax. (I personally am not getting into whether all these things are permitted or not.) So what can these people do to relax? These people now have available Jewish newspapers, mags, etc. which many people are using for their relaxation time.