CAUSE & EFFECT (?)

It would be easier if we could pinpoint the cause of the gun violence epidemic. If we could say “here is the thing that is so wrong with our society that it is causing men to kill a lot of strangers all at once.” If we could do that, we could simply remove that cause and the senseless killing would go away. Unfortunately, it seems that there isn’t one specific thing. When it comes down to it, we could say that toxic masculinity and the differentiating treatment of people of all genders is probably a root cause -- but these too permeate our patriarchal society and to remove them would be to overhaul all of our systems. We want a more simple answer than this. We want to be told that it’s because of violent video games, or abusive fathers, or as Amnesty International suggests, easy access to firearms. We all know that none of these are the entire answer, and that it is way more nuanced and hazy than that. Cause & Effect? looks at this desperate grasp for an answer, explores our need to cast blame in order to remove ourselves from the cause, and starts to get us thinking about the role women play in this narrative: When are they blamed, how are they affected, and why don’t we see them committing these horrific acts? There may be no simple answer, but perhaps the first step to ending gun violence is to accept that the discussion has to be nuanced. Cause & Effect? is taking a step into the grey haze.