Female scholars in history vs Modern working women:

Female scholars in our history generally took the knowledge from their mahram relatives, who were scholars themselves, at home. And their numbers compared to the total number of scholars and Imams is small. 

A good example of women learning from their mahram relatives is Imam Ala' al-Din al-Samarqandi's daughter Fathima. Imam Al-Kasani was a student of the Hanafi legal scholar 'Ala' al-Din al-Samarqandi (died 1144), the author of Tuhfat al-Fuqaha'. Al-Samarqandi's daughter, Fatima, was also trained in Fiqh. Fatima al-Samarqandi was highly sought after for marriage. Fatima and her father only accepted Al-Kasani's proposal after he wrote Bada'i As-Sana'i as an explanation of Tuhfat Al-Fuqaha, and Bada'i As-Sana'i was accepted as a Bridal Gift for Fatima. This book is considered as one of the authoritative Hanafi fiqh books and is even today taught to fiqh students in madaris. 

However, such examples simply cannot be used to push the justification of modern universal female employment in factories and general offices. There have been some excellent fighters among sahabiat too that we read in history but it was not the norm for ladies to fight. Exceptions were there and will always be there and it cannot be used to generalise that for all. 

Ayesha siddiqua RA narrated 2100 ahadeeth in her 63 years of life. The Sahaba used to come and ask her from behind a curtain or used to write a letter asking the questions and she used to answer them by narrating the ahadeeth. It cannot be compared to the modern jobs that women do in any way. The female Hadith narrators (who were generally elderly in age) afterwards too used to listen to the ahadeeth from behind a curtain and give ijaza of that Hadeeth to the seekers who used to read out the Hadeeth loudly to her from behind a curtain. 

Their example simply doesn't justify modern women working in factories and general offices. 

Some people use the names of Hadith female narrators to make a claim that women used to learn and teach every where in society even in mixed gatherings. First of all we should know that every narrator of Hadith was not a scholar. Even common people used to memorize some ahadeeth and narrated to others. It doesn't make them scholars.

Islam doesnt discourage females from learning or teaching ilm but it has to be with the conditions stated by Shariah. Learning relevant basic Deeni knowledge is compulsory on every male and female. So definitely we need female scholars too to teach the women. 

Islam has a general scheme of social and family roles for males and females and it cannot be changed at our whims and to match the modern trends. The consequences of altering it will be disastrous. Let us keep all the genuine exceptions given in Shariah for women to work outside as exceptions without upsetting the divine balance.