Week Three-Mernissi and Misogyny

Mernissi, as a Muslim woman perplexed by the use of Muhammad's words to subjugate women in politics and society, decides to investigate how such quotable religious one-liners came to excuse misogyny. To answer this dilemma, she investigates the origins of hadiths, or statements or actions attributed to Muhammad, by "companions" that claimed to have heard or seen him create such knowledge. In our readings, we track Mernissi's investigations of three particular hadiths that have led to women's exclusion in politics, social inferiority to men, and wearing of the hijab.
In all of these examples, I find Mernissi's evidence both convincing but also in line with those she disagrees with. In attempting to convince the reader to doubt the authenticity of these hadiths, she often relies on the words of another "companion", albeit an important source, Aisha, Muhammad's favorite wife. To directly follow what people might, and that's a big might, have said 1300 or so years ago, seems a little unscientific, which is what Mernissi tries to base her argument off of. She insists Abu Bakr's hadiths must be disregarded because he was convicted of slander, in which we know no details, yet gives Aisha the benefit of the doubt in fighting against 'Ali. That seems a little hypocritical to me.
While I agree that these hadiths are most-likely either misinterpretations of what the Prophet said or plainly made-up, I find it difficult to support that reasoning with more third and fourth-hand sources. It might be a better strategy to argue that one shouldn't follow the literal meanings of texts, even if they are holy, when they encourage discrimination. It doesn't mean one can't follow the main concepts of a religion, such as introspection, charity, morality, etc. But believing that women are on the same level as dogs and asses because of one quote that came from a clearly biased source 1300 years ago, is clearly a manipulation of Islam to keep women suppressed.