I think your point has essentially been disproved by the other comments on this article.

Among many other examples of how Islam protects and empowers women, Islam gives women full rights to their property before and after marriage. Secular, republican France did not extend this right to women until 1935. Until then a French woman’s property became her husband’s upon marriage. Muhammad’s wife Khadijah was a successful businesswoman, and he worked for her before they married. She continued to manage her business as a married woman.

The women of the first Islamic community (which live and was governed according to much-maligned sharia law) demonstrated the multiple roles that women can and should fulfil – not only as wives and mothers, but also leaders, generals, scholars, educators, businesspeople, social workers… The stories of their lives show how independent and free-willed they were.

Islam also gives women the right to divorce, e.g. if a husband is violent or unable to fulfil his wife’s sexual needs.

It is sadly true that many Muslims and Muslim cultures do not uphold the ideals and principles of Islam regarding women, whether through ignorance or by choice. But Islam, the Quran and the hadith are not the source of the problem. (People often misquote the Islamic sources, distort their interpretation, or take them out of context in order to argue the opposite, but this is intellectual dishonesty.)