Shortly after the May 23rd shooting, at the University of California Santa Barbara people started blaming it on misogyny. However, the cause was far more complicated and misogyny, while involved, was not the root cause, but rather was a result of other circumstances. Some may ask why it matters whether or not misogyny was the root cause; indeed people have asked me this when confronting the oversimplified view of the shooting.

There are two answers to this question. The first is that, unless we know the root cause, we cannot know how to best prevent a similar event from occurring again. The second is that, in understanding that misogyny was not the root cause, but was a product of other conditions, we can see that misogyny is going to be far more difficult to combat than other societal ills.
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