Motherhood and being second to a man was not how women felt. They longed to be heard and to be considered just as superior as the men they married. Society expected women to just be mothers and this however did not fulfil their dreams and ambitions. Most women longed to work and to be considered as a professional, not just a mother. Although none of these poems are negative about motherhood they express that women did however have ambitions and were not just going to sit around and be nothing. They were to pursue their ambitions. .
"Professor Eisenbart's Evening" is a typical example of how Gwen Harwood casts men in the role of destroyer and women as creators. In this poem Professor Eisenbart is portrayed as the dominant character, an intellectual who works all day to provide the comfortable lifestyle of him and his mistress. He is seen to be that of a high class, or at least thinks himself to be, as he walks through her suburb, observing their "tribal styles". His attitude towards these people is disgust, and he controls himself from retaliating to the "sniggers" at his approach. As he enters his mistresses gateway, he begins to relax as the "spring's catkin fingers caress my loosening cheek." The reader can acknowledge Eisenbarts mood in the second stanza, as he tells of his "stalking Jack the Ripper heart", a sense of animalistic want can be felt by the reader. The introduction of Eisenbarts mistress fits with that of Harwood's thoughts on the females" "conformist behaviour." When asked about her day she replies nonchalantly: "Slept late, as in my usual way/Did usual things at usual hours/Went shopping, read, arranged the flowers." Showing the stereotype that women stay at home doing everyday, ordinary things. Eisenbart then becomes enraged because his mistress does not succumb to his demands, and he threatens to destroy the moon. But his mistress finds his intellectual banter boring, and teases him to work out "what formulae you need to crack the cold-short lunar rock" while she sleeps.