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What is We Hunted the Mammoth? A blogger who hates me offers answers.

This mammoth fights back!
This mammoth fights back!

Lucy Walcott, who publishes a blog called NotParticularlyPauciloquent, isn’t afraid of the big questions. The tough questions. The important questions.

And in a recent post she takes on what is perhaps the most important question of our age: What is We Hunted the Mammoth?

To paraphrase the great Marge Gunderson, I’m not so sure I agree 100% with her police work.

To me, it seems like an arrogant blog made for one purpose and one purpose only, to attack MRA and anything that feminists don’t like.

Uh, what about the cat pictures? I post a lot of cat pictures too.

This blog has no substance, none, none at all.

I’m getting the impression that this isn’t going to be a good review.

It’s about lying about the other side and mocking them all of the time.

As everyone knows, quoting people verbatim is the most insidious form of lying there is.

Oh, I can’t write on the comments section of it, however, because it’s comments are so havily moderated that not a single word of criticism of the sites content can get through. Literally, look at the comments section, about 100% pro-WHTM.

Uh, you’re free to post what you like. I don’t ban for disagreement, As long as you don’t threaten anyone, or make rape jokes, or post victim-blamey shit about people who are already being harassed by half the internet, or post a hundred comments in an hour, or do something else that’s totally vile and/or annoying, you’re pretty much good to go. Trouble is, a lot of the “critics” who come to this site actually do one or more of these terrible things.

Because a lot of them are assholes and/or trolls. Because the Men’s Rights movement is little more than a collection of assholes and trolls.

Now while I am not a MRA, I will state that this site goes above and beyond The O’reilly Factor to become the next Rush Limbaugh of blogging. The sites logo literally says that the whole purpose of the site is to mock.

Also “track.” As in, monitor and write about. You know, like, say, Right Wing Watch, or HateWatch, or Justin Bieber Watch.

Oh, wait, that last one literally is a Justin Bieber watch.

The blog is seeping with arrogance: “I reserve the right to ban anyone at any time for any reason I want.” is just the tip of the iceberg.

Actually, everyone who has a blog has this right, and most of them take advantage of it from time time. I pointed this out explictly, because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life explaining to some asshole rules lawyer who came up with a new and unforseen way to troll the blog why I’m not letting him post any more.

This blog is filled with this head-up-your-ass style of talk. This high-and-mighty level of talk while the blog itself only quotes specific people while refusing to even acknowledge anyone else.

Wait, what? I quote “specific people?” Am I supposed to quote, er, unspecific people? Or groups of people? Or everyone on planet earth?

And it HATES the MRM. Completely, totally, unethically, laments it. Mocks it. I may call out feminism on many points, but I never mock it for shits and giggles.

I mock the Men’s Rights movement because writing about it seriously all the time would be really fucking depressing. Because MRAs are, by and large, shitheads. I mean, seriously, have you ever looked at the horrible things they say and do?

If you haven’t, let me suggest you go through the archives of a most fascinating website called We Hunted the Mammoth for countless examples.

This blog is only around for the notion of inviting a fringe minority of people who seriously hate anything non-feminist.

Really? I like a lot of things that aren’t feminist. Cats. Pizza. Music. I mean, I love Kathleen Hanna and all, but most music is by people who aren’t feminists. And guess what, I don’t automatically hate it because of that. Same with art. Same with books. Same with, well, people. Feminism, historically speaking, is a fairly recent development, and it’s still mostly a minority taste. Which means that most people, and most things, in the world are non-feminist.

If I were given a job hating things that aren’t feminist, I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day to do it. I’d have to hire assistants. Lots of assistants. Assistants who, unlike my current assistants, aren’t cats.

Luckily, the job I’ve assigned myself with this blog is a lot less ambitious than that: I track (and, yes, mock) a relatively small number of people, mostly but not exclusively dudes, whose basically devote their entire lives to coming up with new excuses for hating women.

And yes, I will confess that I’m not really very fond of these people. Except as a source of material.

Which doesn’t help the feminists either. This mocking drivel seems to be very much the thing that many feminists seem to bash male feminists for. Sorry David, but even the Feminist Current wants you to just sit down and shut up.

Huh. Most feminists I know don’t really have a problem with jokes at the expense of MRA asshats. They have a problem when male feminists act like entitled asshats themselves, as I’ve learned by doing just that and getting called out for it. Sometimes sitting down and shutting up is the right thing for male feminists to do, provided that they don’t sit there sulking instead of listening.

Come to think of it, there are a lot of people who could benefit from sitting down and shutting up from time to time. And in some cases, all of the time.

Way to be against misogyny by telling women who aren’t for feminism that they are sad and mockable individuals.

Again, there are lots of women who aren’t feminists. I don’t write about them, much less mock them. The women I write about on this blog are a small minority of these women – mostly female MRAs who are as actively hateful as their male counterparts, and who devote much of their time to, yes, mocking and sometimes viciously harassing other women.

Do they deserve to be called out for that? Well, yeah, as much as any #GamerGate dickhead posting shit about Anita Sarkeesian does.

I am actually starting to think this site is a troll site meant to get feminists to agree with obviously man-hating propaganda to use against them later on.

This is the favorite insincere “criticism” from people who don’t like this blog but who haven’t actually read enough of it to even begin the process of assembling anything approaching a real critique. I would say [citation needed] for the alleged “man-hating propaganda,” but I’ve said that to countless people before and I’ve yet to get a single example of the misandry that is said to be everywhere here.

But sadly, this site is everywhere, and I cannot go anywhere without finding this radical Feminist Rush Limbaugh blog.

Well, that’s a new one, at least. I’ll give you credit for that.

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grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

@ contrapangloss – brilliant! Why didn’t Gandalf think of that? (stoopid bloody wizard)

contrapangloss
10 years ago

Tolkien also kind of stunk at making nicknames, in addition to his troublesome racial and gender dynamics.

It’s a good thing he had editors, because Trotter would have been a terrible name for Strider. I’ll forgive them for letting Sharkey through, though, because it gave a greater level of justification to calling my shark pillow Saruman.

grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

@ Shaun DarthBatman Day – “The Bromeliad”, you say? Googled it. Thanks! Maybe that will lure Young Master Grump away from all things MineCraft. (“The Hobbit” and “Treasure Island” did not work).

contrapangloss
10 years ago

@grumpyoldnurse, I know right?

Mithrandir, where hast thou put thy brain?

grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

@ contrapangloss – maybe he left it in a willow tree someplace?

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

@ nurse, Pratchett cures everything. Also look for the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, it’s for kids a bit older than Bromeliad is for, I would also go with the Tiffany Aching books (seriously they are the most fun ever and I can’t wait for Mouse to be old enough for them), which might get him to segue into Harry Potter (yeah, problematic, but counterable and gets kids reading).

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

And the Achings, as an added bonus, have a female lead! *And* they counter some of the “females are evil” themes normally associated with witchcraft and all other things female.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Basically an old woman is accused of witchcraft and murdered by the villagers, so Tiffany, who is 9 and a half, has decided to become a witch so that it never happens again. Her brother is abducted by fairies and she goes after him with a frying pan because that is what a witch should do. She is one of my favourite imaginary people ever.

grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

Thanks, Shaun! Will check it out.

Falconer
10 years ago

The Mere of Dead Men is so blatantly No Man’s Land — deep holes in the ground with dead men at the bottom, filled with water — that I was surprised to read that Tolkien denied any relation between the two. The only big difference is that No Man’s Land wasn’t that flooded.

It was my understanding that Trotter was going to be a Bree Hobbit, but very early on Tolkien decided to go with the whole Once and Future King theme. Trotter would still have been a terrible name for a king.

Interestingly, AD&D is still so tied in to Tolkien (they had to take the hobbits and the balrog out after a C&D letter) that high-level rangers get to use crystal balls and other spying-type magic items, all because Aragorn wrested the Orthanc palantír away from Sauron.

(BTW – Nerd alert! Sam didn’t go to The West. He stayed in the Shire and married Rosie and had baby Hobbits).

Well, no, he didn’t go with Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf. He left the Shire when he was 102 and family tradition thereafter said he went to the Grey Havens and left for the Undying Lands.

Legolas certainly brought Gimli along when he went.

Sometimes I imagine Rivendell all abandoned and empty and lonely, with autumn leaves blowing through it, and I give myself a sad.

Falconer
10 years ago

Oh, I also have to recommend the Bromeliad trilogy, and the Tiffany Aching books, and the standalone novel Nation. Basically anything that’s got Pratchett’s name on the cover (except Beloved didn’t like The Long Earth).

Speaking of accusing people of being witches … it being October, and ParaNorman streaming on Netflix, I watched it recently. I went into it knowing only that Norman can speak to ghosts. I was not ready for the twist. No fucking way. I read somewhere recently that every good comedy has a bit where the jokes end, or at least pause, and things get real. That movie gets very real.

grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

Apologies, Falconer. That detail about Sam has slipped my mind.

Don’t be too sad about Rivendell – I’m sure a few Elves would hang around. Also, with the wilds being less wild, perhaps someone else would move in. A Rivendell with Men, Hobbits, and Dwarves would, to my mind, be preferable to one with just Elves.

LBT
LBT
10 years ago

RE: Gallogly

British. One cat. Nice to meet you.

KITTY! Er, I mean, yes, good to meet you as well. Ahem.

RE: proxie me

Didn’t you know that all art is freeze peach and the refore SO SACROSANCT that it is above criticism and consequence?

*eyeroll* I’ve actually seen that tacitly argued with shit like De Sade and such. Hated it then too.

RE: Falconer

We watched Paranorman last year! Liked it not quite as well as Coarline, but still really good. Need to see the Boxtrolls…

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

Stephen Baxter broke Terry Pratchett. The science is bad. Pratchett is usually so good with his science. The most obvious and incredibly annoying example is stating that the Beagles are descended from dogs. Dogs were a human creation, and are descended from wolves. Beagles are *not* a human creation, and stating that they are descended from dogs and not wolves is a pathetic conceit and should have been caught before it went in for editing. The High Meggers? No. Just no. Ice ages are time sensitive events, and have to do with our position in the galaxy. It’s a natural cycle and would not be that out of whack for no reason. I could see one, maybe a few, but thousands? Just no. SO MUCH BAD SCIENCE! Also only a few Gaps? Fuck sake, if the universe recreates itself at every branch, then it can’t be simply Earth centric. They explore this in The Long Mars, but they try to dismiss it and it’s clumsy and bullshit. GRRRRR.

Falconer
10 years ago

Oh, no, you don’t have to apologize to me. It’s not in the text — the book ends with Sam sitting down at his dinner table and announcing that he’s back — and it’s such a minor detail.

Anyway, I have no desire in any way to gatekeep nerdery. Probably I shouldn’t even have responded to you.

It is true that the Shire and Bree seem to be islands in a great stretch of wilderness filled with trolls and orcs at the start of the story. I guess Rivendell is less remote once the King has Returned.

… the story is also horribly patriarchal, what with there being a King and all.

Falconer
10 years ago

@Shaun: I admit I haven’t even cracked The Long Earth, so I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. It’s on my bookshelf, so I’ll take a look if the babies ever let me read anything other than One Fish Two Fish, and/or after I get done running Ravenloft for my gaming group.

@LBT: I can see how the twist in ParaNorman had to be what it was, but it hurt. I’m hoping to watch Boxtrolls at some point; probably I won’t be able to catch it in theaters.

grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

Anyway, I have no desire in any way to gatekeep nerdery. Probably I shouldn’t even have responded to you.

But you did it so graciously! Besides, there are very few things that I nerd about, so I appreciate it when someone (graciously) points out that my nerd zipper is down.

… the story is also horribly patriarchal, what with there being a King and all.

Imagine what would have happened if Galadriel had taken the One Ring when Frodo offered it to her? Ebil Matriarchy!!!Bwahahahahahaha!

saphy
saphy
10 years ago

Falconer, I have also been getting the ‘abandoned Rivendell sads’ since I first read the book and appendices when I was 11. I think I even cried about it at the time. 🙁

contrapangloss
10 years ago

Glorfindel is still grouching about how his part always gets stolen.

First animated movie? Legolas steals his horse. Live action move? Arwen steals him!

No respect for a (reincarnated in my head canon) blaring slayer, or his magnificent steed, anywhere!

Random LoTR nerd-outs be fun… 🙂

Falconer
10 years ago

Falconer, I have also been getting the ‘abandoned Rivendell sads’ since I first read the book and appendices when I was 11. I think I even cried about it at the time. 🙁

In the first appendix, Aragorn lies down on his bier and dies (apparently Men can choose to give up the ghost) but Arwen goes to abandoned Lothlorien and dies among the fallen leaves there. Just, you know. In case you were feeling happy at all.

My mom rolls her eyes whenever Sam fawns over Frodo, like when he strokes Frodo’s hand after F. recovers in Rivendell. It creeps me out, too. And people actually ship them as presented in the books. You can make an argument that the movie versions are on more of an equal footing, but there’s a definite class barrier between them in the books.

LBT
LBT
10 years ago

RE: Falconer

I can see how the twist in ParaNorman had to be what it was, but it hurt.

Yeah. I actually kinda appreciated it for talking about how the cycle of violence and vengeance can work, in a way that I didn’t find at all victim-blamey. It took on a pretty tough topic, and I thought it dealt with it with wisdom and sympathy.

Shaun DarthBatman Day
10 years ago

Falconer you’re not missing much. I just have to read when I see “Pratchett”. Or “Tepper”.

contrapangloss
10 years ago

Arwen! Why can’t you just catch a lift with Legolas and Gimli? What’s with the ‘I must go to my abandoned grandmother’s realm and fade away’ stuffs?

What about your kidlets, and grand kidlets?

Tolkien? Why are you so enamored with this ‘Elves and their broken hearts’ thing?!

Falconer
10 years ago

@contrapangloss:

No respect for a (reincarnated in my head canon) blaring slayer, or his magnificent steed, anywhere!

Headcanon, hell! That’s CANON! That’s the same Glorfindel! When Elves die, they shuffle off their mortal coil and wake up in the Halls of Mandos after a sort of purgatory period. The Halls are in the Undying Lands, and very few Elves chose to return to Middle-Earth after that. Glorfindel was one of those few.

And Glorfindel’s been around as a character since about 1917.

Falconer
10 years ago

@LBT: I thought they did a really good job, too. I hope Boxtrolls lives up to their precedent.

Falconer
10 years ago

@contrapangloss:

Tolkien? Why are you so enamored with this ‘Elves and their broken hearts’ thing?!

I think I saw Tolkien’s Roman Catholic background shining through there (Elves marry once and for life), together with all that courtly love he probably absorbed with his food at Oxford. Also his guardian forbidding him from seeing the woman he loved until he was 21 probably had something to do with it. He did it, too, and was almost too late: She’d accepted someone else’s proposal because she felt like Tolkien wasn’t interested any more.