A choshuve rav told women NOT to daven or say tehillim? There has to be more to the story. Did he mean from a sefer, or standing up to daven, etc? They can’t move their lips to daven by heart? Something is missing here.
Reminds me of a friend who taught in a secular Jewish high school. At a teacher’s meeting one of the teachers railed about how inappropriate some of the boys were by wearing their caps or other headgear in class. Now clearly these weren’t yarmulkes. My friend said, she would never be able to tell a Jewish boy to take off his hat.
So I can’t believe a rav would say to a group of nashim tzidknonios, don’t daven. Maybe they should stop breathing too.