This study uses discourse analysis to show how episteme can prevent sophisticated people from seeing obvious contradictions in arguments. Three streams of discourse to save an Iranian woman from a death sentence were studied to show that discourse which was created to oppose sexism in Iran and its manifestation in judicial procedures, itself expressed an overt and intense kind of sexism. Seventeen articles and news stories in widely read news websites, four statements by human rights organizations, and four letters or announcements by celebrities or politicians were studied and the result was that these human rights activities were highly sexist in that they supported a woman convicted for murder and adultery while withholding the same support for her male conspirator.
more