Gender Roles and Expectations in And Yet

Thematic Claim: Patriarchy’s Script and Women’s Quiet Rebellion

In And Yet, Kate Baer exposes how patriarchal norms shrink women into prescribed roles—the good mother, the desirable wife, the self-sacrificing caretaker—while dismissing their pain, ambition, and complexity. Across the collection, the speaker navigates these expectations with alternating compliance, frustration, and small acts of defiance. Baer argues that women are conditioned to perform for a male gaze that only later (and often too late) learns empathy, and that the real work of liberation begins in admitting the weight of that performance. Yet, true to the collection’s title, the poems also insist on perseverance: “and yet” the speaker continues, picking up trash, writing poems, and embracing her own volatile heart.

The Male Gaze and Belated Empathy: Tracing the Cycle

The poem “There Are Days” (chapter 8) opens with a sweeping indictment: “There are days I can’t believe we let the boys / with the new blue jeans and slick haircuts / decide the emotions of fourth grade girls.” This single sentence compresses decades of gender conditioning. The boys who control playground feelings become Fall Athletes and Spring Play Leads, then college suitors who “haunt our rooms with little deaths,” and eventually men who slip behind desks to sign paychecks. The speaker traces a direct line from childhood permission to adult power. The most damning moment comes when these men finally say, “Now that I have a daughter.” Only when they become fathers of girls do they glimpse the harm they participated in. This delayed empathy is not redemption; it is a belated recognition that exposes how long women have been expected to absorb emotional labor without complaint.

The poem’s final line, “How they climb and climb and climb and climb,” repeats without variation, suggesting a system that endlessly reproduces itself. No intervention occurs. The speaker does not offer a solution—only the bitter clarity of seeing the pattern. This poem establishes the collection’s foundational critique: patriarchal roles are taught young, reinforced socially, and only questioned when men become personally invested in the female experience.

The Performance of Wifehood and the Ghost Self

In “Love Story” (chapter 56), Baer narrows the lens to a single domestic scene. The wife sends her husband a “blurry photo / of her left breast to signal that she will [have sex] / under the conditions of dusk and wine.” The emoji-laden reply (“thumbs up, eggplant emoji, / yellow winking face”) reduces intimacy to transactional signs. By 7 p.m., the household is chaos: children brawling, parents performing chores. The wife gathers blankets while the husband fills cups. Then, when the children sleep, the wife declares, “I am a ghost.” The husband nods, sets down the laundry, and “takes the ghost into his hands.”

This poem anatomizes the role of wife as sexual and domestic manager. The wife initiates desire according to a script (dusk, wine), but the performance drains her of selfhood. Becoming a ghost is both a complaint and a resignation: she has vanished into the role. Her husband, though physically present, cannot restore her substance; he can only handle what remains. The poem’s quiet horror lies in its normalcy—this is a Tuesday night, unexceptional. Baer suggests that the performance of wifely duty, even when consensual, erases the woman beneath it.

The Impossibility of Repair: When Poetry Can’t Fix Men

Later in the collection, “Personal Detention” (chapter 92) strips the argument to its bone: “I can’t fix men with poems.” This line repeats seven times, the eighth time breaking apart into “I can’t fi x / m / e / n.” The visual fragmentation suggests a cracking of language itself. The poem admits powerlessness. After all the catalogues of male privilege and female erasure, the speaker confronts the limit of her medium. Words cannot reform the patriarchal system from within. This is not a declaration of defeat but of realism: the burden of change does not belong to women who are already exhausted.

“Fatal Flaw” (chapter 101) offers a companion piece. The speaker throws a “surprise party for her rage,” attended by first responders. She calls herself an “insult to this world” and recalls drunkenly writing the portmanteau “inslut.” Her emotional seesaw—hope and disgust, good poems and bad—becomes a dog chasing its tail. The triple “and yet” at the end signals stubborn continuation. Here, the expected feminine virtue of composure is rejected. Rage, volatility, and self-laceration are not flaws to be cured; they are the lived texture of a woman who refuses to perform placid contentment.

Symbol Connections: Glitter Heels and the Weight of Ambition

In “My Ambition Goes Off to War” (chapter 2), the speaker’s personified ambition packs a suitcase containing ordinary items and “glitter heels.” A commander searches the bag but does not react to the impractical shoes. The train departs, and the speaker begs for postcards that never arrive. The glitter heels symbolize female desire that is simultaneously ornamental and unfitting for the harsh world of “war”—the marketplace, the public sphere, the serious business of achievement. The commander’s indifference mirrors how patriarchal institutions ignore or trivialize women’s ambitions unless they conform to masculine norms. The severed communication (no postcards) suggests a self split in two: the domestic self left behind, and the ambitious self that may never return. This poem shows that even when a woman pursues ambition, she must do so in a world hostile to its glittering impracticality.

Complexity and Contradiction: Performing Goodness, Resisting Labels

The collection does not present a monolithic victim. In “♀ Bad Woman” (chapter 12), the speaker contrasts herself with a woman “so pregnant with adoration, she floats across the room.” That woman is a “goddamn bossbabe” whose very existence inspires weeping gratitude. Meanwhile, the speaker is “pregnant with indecision,” the “Glenn Close of every circle”—the archetype of the deranged woman. She asks, “Is she good or is she wicked?” and then challenges the binary: “What if I told you the / proof is in the pudding?” The poem refuses to settle into either purity or villainy. It suggests that the pressure to be a good woman (selfless, inspirational, easy to admire) is itself a trap. The speaker’s ambiguity is not a flaw but a refusal to perform that script.

Similarly, “History Repeated” (chapter 54) imagines a revolutionary moment: “Once the women realize they need only themselves— / naturally, a revolution.” The anaphora (“Once the women realize they need only feed themselves… love themselves… birth themselves… pleasure themselves”) lists the very domains where women have been expected to serve others. The poem is conditional and brief, but it points toward a liberatory horizon that the rest of the collection can only glimpse.

Conclusion: The And Yet of Persistence

Throughout And Yet, Baer refuses to offer easy comfort. Gender roles are shown as suffocating, yet the speaker keeps moving—picking up trash, calling her great-aunt, writing poems that admit failure. The collection’s title encapsulates this tension: the argument is heavy, the evidence damning, “and yet” the speaker continues. This is not a triumphant resolution but a ragged, honest perseverance. The poems do not prescribe how to escape patriarchy; they simply refuse to be silenced by it.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the poem “There Are Days” critique the male gaze and belated empathy?
The poem traces boys who control girls’ emotions in fourth grade and grow into men who hold economic and romantic power. Only when they become fathers of daughters do they say, “Now that I have a daughter,” revealing that empathy is belated and conditional. The repeated final line “climb” underscores the self‑perpetuating nature of male privilege.

2. What does the wife’s statement “I am a ghost” reveal about her experience of marriage in “Love Story”?
After performing sexual availability and domestic labor, the wife feels emptied of selfhood. The husband can only “take the ghost into his hands,” suggesting he cannot restore her personhood. The poem critiques the marital script that requires women to initiate desire, manage chaos, and then become invisible.

3. How does the repetition in “Personal Detention” emphasize the speaker’s powerlessness?
The line “I can’t fix men with poems” repeats seven times, each iteration reinforcing the boundary of what poetry can achieve. The eighth line fragments into “I can’t fi x / m / e / n,” visually breaking both word and gender category. The repetition functions as a mantra of defeat—and of release from the burden of reform.

4. In “♀ Bad Woman,” how does the speaker challenge the binary of good versus wicked woman?
The speaker contrasts herself with a woman adored for her perfection, yet refuses to label herself either good or wicked. By asking “What if I told you the proof is in the pudding?” she implies that the categories themselves are false. The poem resists the pressure to perform an easily approved femininity.

5. How does the symbol of glitter heels connect to the theme of women’s ambition in the collection?
In “My Ambition Goes Off to War,” the glitter heels represent impractical, ornamental female desire packed for a harsh journey. The commander’s indifference mirrors how patriarchal systems ignore women’s ambitions unless they conform to masculine standards. The severed communication (no postcards) suggests a split between domestic self and ambitious self.