Images by Barbara Kruger

The three images (figures 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3) that are in this chapter, made by the artist Barbara Kruger all communicate about gendered identities. When you look at the first image (figure 10.1) you see a man's arm and he's holding a fire torch, and behind the man's arm there seems to be a picture of what it appears to be a heart. This first image is representing power and pride to the masculine side and the heart is representing "love" to the female side. You should keep in mind that males are most of the time considered tough, bold, powerful, arrogant, and preciseful. Females are considered sensitive, gentle, modest, caring, and lovable. Both have different qualities in themselves, a man is defined by the actions he does or the way he looks, same goes for females. Back to the 1st image, there is a quote that goes along with the image, "Your moments of joy have the precision of military strategy." What comes up in your mind when you hear the word "military"? Females or males? To me -- I think of males when I hear the word "military". The word "joy" in this situation is "love". So when I look at the first image (figure 10.1), it's masculine and also feminine.
The second image (figure 10.2), looks like an explosion and there is also a quote that goes with this picture, "Your manias become science." I went and looked through a dictionary to find out what the word "manias" meant, and I came up with an excessively instense enthusiasm, interest, or desire. Also under this word, it is a violent abnormal behavior. I do not see anything on this picture that could be considered feminine. If you see an explosion, you think of man destroying a part of land or area. Scientist that create things for destruction are mostly males.
On the third and final image by Barbara Kruger (figure 10.3), you see two hands that seem to be from a man and he's scrubbing a "soap" and the quote that goes for this image goes like this, "You make history when you do business." Who are the ones that are conisdered to do more work? Males, females are more known to be housewifes at home, cooking and taking care of the kids and the house. Kruger is challenging certain norms that cluster around the sign of masculinity (military, scientist, and businessman) -- what would be interesting to see is seeing signs or feminine in these images. On the third image you could make the man hands to female and see if there would be a different meaning to it (to all of the three images).

"Time is Money" Response

The phrase “time is money” has never had a very profound meaning to me before the question of its true meaning was presented to me. I never really gave the true meaning out of this phrase any thought. However, now that I am being forced to think about this phrase's true meaning, I would say that it refers to one's time spent at work being given monetary compensation. The phrase it usually used in order to hurry someone or something; that the sooner something is done, the sooner one can return to work and get paid or receive some other form of compensation. This saying is also used by employers who see their employees slacking off and not working for the money they are making. This thought process gives way to a society that is rushed and also to employers whom demand hard, consistent work from their employees. This also correlates to the value of the goods produced by these workers in that the more time one spends making something, the more it will (or should) cost. However, owners of businesses will often pressure their employees to work harder and faster in order to produce a larger quantity of goods, which will in turn be sold for the profit of the company.
This phrase applies to everyday life as well, not only related to business. For example, the faster I can get this assignment done the sooner I can move on to my next assignment and the sooner I will be done with my homework which will allow me to go to my job (at which I am paid for the work I do). I am consistently checking the clock to see how much time I have until I need to get ready for work and how much effort I can put into my school assignments.

The Cost of Not Understanding the Question

Theoretically, the more time you put into something, the more money you should get out of it. This is not always the case, obviously, for many reasons. Some people have very specialized jobs that not many people can do, and they get paid more for less time. The concept that time is money has implications in every area of life, whether you are working or not. Time is the only currency that you can't get more of. You have a certain amount of it, realizing as I say this that time in and of itself is a human creation that doesn't actually exist, and then you die, and you are out of time. Money is a way of getting things for the amount of time you've put into something. Since you can't get your time refunded, we'll give you money to make up for it.

In factories, time is money in many ways. The faster you work, the less time you use per product, the more product you can create, sell, and subsequently earn more money. If you slow down, it can cost money, or at least profits, because there will be less product, so there will be less income, and the spending will not decrease proportionately.

The more intricate and time-consuming something is, the more expensive it is to consume, so the more time you have to put into something else to earn it. It's a great cycle, isn't it?