The Qur'an - Tentative Response

In this text, what support is there for thinking that Muslims treat women differently than other groups we have studied?

Islam is typically viewed as a religion that is profoundly anti-women.   There are plenty of anti-female hadith (e.g. “Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity”.   There’s little doubt that the Qur’an assigns different status to men and to women (2.222-3, 2.229 ff., 4.3, 4.11, 4.15), asserting that generally women are lawfully bound to their husbands and are their property.  But, there are many passages in which Muhammad urges husbands to treat their wives with kindness, and on the provisions that the Muslim law demands in cases of divorce and inheritance.  You can imagine two sorts of Muslims – those who take the many remarks about female modesty, privacy and dependence as fixed points, and those who think that the spirit of the religion is to promote kind and just social relations.