By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

Here’s “The Ex” shooting target that Zombie Industries sells

*Trigger warning*

At the National Rifle Association convention this past weekend, vendor Zombie Industries was asked to remove a shooting target that looks like President Obama. The company sells more than a dozen mannequins that “bleed” when shot, and as it states on its website, “to discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist.” So here’s the the one female mannequin they sell: It is called “The Ex.”

The "Ex" shooting target

Between 30 and 40 percent of women murdered in the US each year are killed by a current or former intimate partner. In over half of these cases, the perpetrator used a gun. Put another way: Of women killed with guns, almost two-thirds are killed by their intimate partners.

Given that they are apparently so concerned with “sexism,” I wonder if Zombie Industries knows just how closely their product mirrors this reality. You can ask them here.

Via TPM.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

Read more about Maya

Join the Conversation