NRA Vendor Sells Ex-Girlfriend Target That Bleeds When You Shoot It
▻http://www.policymic.com/articles/40049/nra-sells-an-ex-girlfriend-target-that-bleeds-when-you-shoot-it
The company has a line of 15 zombies (one of which resembled President Obama so much that it was pulled from the conference by the NRA) and only one is female. "To discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist," the website says. YES, because having the only female character in your line of mannequin targets be “the ex-girlfriend” doesn’t reinforce sexist and fatally dangerous stereotypes.
I’m not even sure how to begin unpacking this, so let me start with some stats. Men’s violence against women is not a small pickle, it’s a huge problem. Not just all over the world and in every society, but particularly here in the United States where "domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women — more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined." One third of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner.
Gun violence is a gendered issue since it impacts women and men in very different ways. Because women are more vulnerable to violence within the home than men (and men are most often the perpetrators of violence against women), the presence of a gun makes females less safe, not more. How do we know? A woman’s likelyhood of a violent death within the home actually increases by 270% when a gun is kept inside the house. Homicide figures don’t lie. Having a gun within their possession didn’t protect women from murder. In fact, it accurately predicted their higher likelyhood of death.