Image of Mary, Clitbait's artist of the month.

About the Artist: Mary Bowen

Mary Bowen is a 23 year old painter who works with textile, sculpture, ceramic, and installation pieces. There is an underlying mysterious and magical element in her work that comes…

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Get involved with Clitbait!

Attend our events Become part of our intersectional, feminist community and attend our events in London, Glasgow or Edinburgh. Keep a look out for our current events on our Instagram…

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GOOD NEWS: Cop27, and the Power of the Feminist Voice

Welcome to our second instalment of good climate news! This time, we wanted to share our reflections following COP27, and some thoughts on intersectional environmentalism more generally. While it’s important to acknowledge the bleakness of the climate crisis we are in, we have drawn on feminist organising to remind ourselves of how important it is to care for one another and share hope…

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Submissions Guide

Do you want to contribute a written piece to Clitbait? Here are some guidelines to make submitting to us easier 🙂 If you have any specific questions, you can reach…

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Women and the Climate Crisis: A More Complex Narrative?

The last decade has seen an increasing focus on gender equality and the impact of the climate crisis. In 2019, Greta Thunberg was named Time magazine’s woman of the year, and in 2022 women and climate change was named a top priority by the UN for COP27 negotiations in Egypt. However, within the dialogue, there is no room for queerness or indeed for intersectionality, or a womanhood that is not comfortably represented in political agency. Experiences of the world which do not fit neatly into a category aren’t accounted for…

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About the artist: Coline Dünya

Coline is a young photographer of French-Turkish descent based in London. Her beautiful and thoughtful work has been and featured in PhotoVogue Italia and granted her a nomination in 2020…

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5 Lines Thoughts On…

From world-shifting crises abroad to major decisions and events taking place here in the UK, it’s no doubt been an overwhelming time. The task of creatively expressing our thoughts about such difficult times can often swallow our energy instead of fuelling it. That’s why we asked our readership to note down an emotional response to a current issue in no more than 5 lines. See them here!

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Who ‘leans in’ and how? Masculinities in workspaces

In 2010, the then Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, delivered a TED talk entitled ‘Why we have too few women leaders’. This talk spawned the now-infamous 2013 book Lean In which lays out her brand of corporate feminist doctrine in greater detail. The crux of Sandberg’s argument is that women lack the assertiveness and ambition of their male colleagues, and that is why they fail to get ahead in their careers.

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Poetry Callout – Freeverse

Hey cuties, we’re doing another poetry callout! For December we’re looking at free verse poems and the theme we have chosen to go along with this structure is “Distance”. You…

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Dear Pre-Pandemic Me, Don’t ever shrink yourself again…

You started well, but you got lost.  You realised the importance of community; a community you connect with.  In the absence of love, you turned to appearances in a desperate attempt to change your circumstances.  It did not work.  You met the wrong people and did the wrong things, but it was not a waste.  But it did feel like it…

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A poem about roots (that constrain me)

CW: Sexual assault/violence

A poem about roots (that constrain me)

Why do you grip that rock there
That place in particular
It is not exceptional yet you sniff
to find the resource jackpot with little thought for my feelings.
One flaking and one green 
You are Brand new 
colonising my mind and making my forces act through different lines
Where do I lean today
On what soil do I make my stance;
hallowed ground?
I want to move yet you tell me I can’t
And they look at me funny and it is all due to you
Lost in assumption not to be talked
To but by, they see how I curl and retract 
Wishing I could fly but indelibly in contact 
with the ground of my past 
politics routine
Each little xylem strand has length running resources
to change and nourish my self.
And I regret you
Despise you
You are unsatisfactory 
For keeping me so still
Retaining my right to freedom.

I wish I could wiggle and dance.
Enact and be my dream
I steal the freedom to be who I want to be
A fairy woman at the end of a long voyage
My narratives an endless strand of silk
to wrap around your neck.
You see you would love the me
That’s exciting and proud and flamboyant
With endless presents and
pockets that bulge

I wiggle my wing rigs
and struggle to see how they care for me
grateful I should be for these life sustaining lines
for time and a past and events I can learn from
They connect me
Brushing up to me with knowledge
Drowning me in memories that
keep me so separate
I am an entity to sustain and condense
Yet not to be.

By Anonymous

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Transcendence – Nov 2021

A joyful queer club night at The Mash House, Edinburgh that raised over £1,500 for Mermaids Gender: https://mermaidsuk.org.uk . The event was in honour of Trans Day of Remembrance, sitting…

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Do you know how fast a hedgehog runs?

Do you know how fast a hedgehog runs?

Night hangs and I, nocturnal, scout the grounds,

the hedgehog, shuffling insomnia-laden under the moon,

head among worms, I cannot see the astral dancers make their rounds,

trapped in a homeland of windswept grass and rainswept loam.

My patter a ritual, earth’s epidermis feigns a heavenly taste

yet so anti-celestial, living from night to night to night 

mired, the entanglement of root and briar and living wasted, 

ensconced in darkness, I’ve forgotten what it is to see the light.

The hedgehog senses predator, confronts her choices

tight entombment in a prickling shell, waiting for teeth,

or else to flee. Do you know how fast a hedgehog runs?

I curled so long I no longer remembered what it meant 

to live without a spiny wall, self-made sarcophagus, dark and tight.

It took the gouge of jaws to make me race away, seeking freedom, seeking light.

Clare M Coombe 

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Personal Grit

Personal Grit

NEED ANSWERS, understanding & more
MARK the path beyond research.
To find out more Create TIES And switch OFF
The constant need to be visually rich, bright, useful and a resource for the creative
& DEPART FROM 
If ur happy PLANTING A RAINBOW
YOU CAN APPRECIATE inspiration,
>>> YOU FEEL READY TO SOW AND GROW ROOTS SHOOTS BUCKETS AND BOOTS
HELP EACH OTHER TO SURVIVE.
BUILDING HERITAGE A NEW WAY
Browse, Explore, Enjoy, ADVOCATE Live Better
YOU are a priority

Jenny Harvey 

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Hummingbird

Hummingbird 

The morning comes into consciousness
And bathes the blue-throated hummingbird in light. 

They sit, they hold.
They listen. 

For what? 
For whom?

My mind is compounded 

From the sky 
This mother voice hollers
So sickly sour
Through some orifice of heaven

For all we do 
Is dance in the rusting leaves 
Waiting for her to 
Call us inside for sup’ 
As streetlamps buzz 
And the dew and the dust 
Settle 

Am I to abide by the father’s voice? 

One that does not recognise
Why the hummingbird changes colours 
 If perhaps pink and white take their fancy 

One who is so flippant 
Omnipotent 
So potently 
Distasteful 

            Disgusted
At the ferocious ideas that unfold from under The beating wings 
Of patience personified 

Are they to give up on body, 
But not the world? 
I should not think so. 

For if we
Too 
Sit, hold, and listen  

Perhaps 
The earth will call out, 
Or reach out a hand, 
                     Bathed in light. 

Alex MacPhail 

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