Hadith: Tasbīh is for the men, and clapping is for the women

عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه مرفوعًا: «التَّسْبِيحُ للرجال، والتَّصْفِيق للنساء».
[صحيح] - [متفق عليه]

Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Tasbīh is for the men, and clapping is for the women."
[Authentic hadith] - [Narrated by Bukhari & Muslim]

Explanation

The Hadīth shows how a Muslim can draw the attention of others while s/he is in prayer, as mentioned in another version narrated by Muslim. If a Muslim is performing prayer, and something occurs and requires him to bring it to the attention of another person, such as notifying the Imām of a fault in the prayer, or seeing a blind person falling in a well, or someone seeking permission to enter, or the praying person wants to notify someone else of a particular matter - in all of these cases and similar situations, the man should make Tasbīh to make others understand what he wants to draw attention to. The woman, however, should clap if something occurred during her prayer and she wants to draw the attention to it by hitting one hand with the other in any way. This is to make sure that the prayer does not involve any irrelevant words, because prayer is the place where one is communicating with Allah, Glorified and Exalted. Therefore, Allah permitted using words pertaining to the type of the sayings said in prayer, i.e. Tasbīh, when there is a need for one to talk during in it.