For the Love of God, Stop Empowering Me!
“We’ve chosen the path to equality, don’t let them turn us around.”
— Geraldine Ferraro
I have a love-hate relationship with March, aka Women’s History Month. On the one hand, I love that we collectively devote more space to elevating women’s voices, championing their successes, and recognizing the persistent barriers they face in their businesses, at work, and at home. On the other hand, I hate the word “empower,” and there’s just no escaping it in March.
For the record, I hate all variations of the word “empower” (i.e., “empowered,” “empowerment,” “empowering”) when used in relation to women. And that’s almost exclusively how it’s used—for women. Take the phrase “empower women,” for example; it’s incredibly patronizing and rings like mansplaining. It literally makes women the object—not the subject—and implies that women need someone else’s (i.e., men’s) help to succeed. Maybe that’s why I get all hot and bothered when I hear well-meaning allies say things like: “It’s great to see an empowered woman empowering other women.” #Cringe.
I appreciate that I’m in the minority here. Societally popular initiatives and multi-million-dollar industries, from coaches to conferences, have been built on the foundation of “women’s empowerment.” Corporate America and the men who dominate it embrace the concept of “empowerment” because it allows them to skirt accountability and maintain the status quo. Sure, there are well-meaning intentions behind many “women’s empowerment” initiatives. But we all know what they say about the road to hell, and I don’t put much stock in good intentions.
Language is crucial in shaping perceptions and driving progress. Just ask my 6-year-old; he’ll enthusiastically tell you the words we use and how we use them matter. Catchy buzzwords like “empower” do more harm than good. And while that harm may be unintentional, its effect moves us backward, not forward. Our collective focus on “empowerment” undermines the women’s equality movement. Let’s talk about how.
“Empowerment” Perpetuates a Power Imbalance
When we speak in terms of “empowering” women, we imply that power is something bestowed on women by external forces or granted from one group (i.e., men) to another (i.e., women). Women are not passive objects, yet that’s exactly how we talk about them. The concept of “empowerment” perpetuates the insidious stereotype that women inherently lack their own power and agency and require external permission or validation to be powerful, successful, ambitious, and all the things women innately are. Promoting this false view of the “powerless woman” reinforces and maintains existing power imbalances. But wait a minute, isn’t the aim of the women’s equality movement to challenge and dismantle the power imbalance, not contribute to it?
Repeat after me: women are inherently badass. No one gives us power, and we don’t need anyone’s permission to be powerful.
“Empower” Implies Dependency
The term “empowerment” suggests that women are not powerful in their own right. In fact, it is more than merely suggestive. You might as well come right out and call us “the weaker gender.” My 6-year-old is an avid reader with a vocabulary that blows my mind most days. Yesterday, I asked him if he’d ever heard the word “empower.” He hadn’t, so I asked him what he thought it meant. He said: “that you don’t have power.” The mouths of babes. Then I asked him, what if I told you some people think women need to be empowered? He said: “I’d want to know who had that idea?” Same, buddy, same.
Let’s take a look at how it’s actually defined, shall we? Merriam-Webster defines “empower” as “to give official authority or legal power to” and “empowerment” as “the granting of the power, right, or authority to perform various acts or duties.” Giving and granting, I think I’ve made my point. But let’s continue. According to Merriam-Webster, “empowered” means “having the knowledge, confidence, means, or ability to do things or make decisions for oneself.” This one takes the cake for me and it’s clear why “empowered” (and all its iterations) is reserved almost exclusively for women. When was the last time we talked about men having the confidence, means, or ability to do things and make decisions for themselves? Never, because of course they do. In case I still need to make my point, guess what Merriam-Webster’s first example sentence for “empowered” is: ‘...generations of educated, empowered women are moving into leadership across all sectors.” Wow. Now that’s a sentence that’s laden with dependency and reeks of passivity.
The word “empower” ignores women’s inherent capabilities and strengths and reinforces the idea that women are dependent on others for their liberation. F that. We are powerful agents in our own right.
“Empowerment” Initiatives Individualize Structural Issues and Limit the Scope of Equality
When our focus is on empowering individual women (or groups of women), we overlook the systemic barriers and institutional inequalities that promote gender discrimination. Framing women’s rights solely in terms of “empowerment,” actively limits what is achievable for gender equality. Yet we remain primarily fixated on “fixing” women. I get it. Women are conditioned to be receptive and responsive to criticism, so focusing our efforts on changing them seems like the more viable solution. It’s also easier to focus on the individual than work to dismantle societal attitudes and systems that have persisted for generations. Here’s the thing: we must do the hard work to make meaningful and lasting progress. We will continue to fail at dismantling the root causes of gender inequality if we don’t abandon individualistic “empowerment initiatives.” (By the way, we are absolutely failing when the data show that, at the rate we’re going, it will take nearly 140 more years to achieve gender parity.)
Don’t take my word for it. In 2018, Jae Yun Kim, Gráinne Fitzsimmons, and Aaron Kay published the results of five experimental studies examining the effect of “lean in” messages (also known as women’s self-improvement or women’s empowerment messaging) on gender equality efforts. “Lean in” messaging suggests that women can reduce gender inequality in the workplace by overcoming “internal barriers” to their success, like lack of confidence, lack of assertiveness, and risk aversion. (How American of us to place the burden on the marginalized group to fix it themselves.)
So, what did Kim, Fitzsimmons, and Kay find? Exposure to “lean in” messages increased people’s perceptions that women are responsible for both causing gender inequality and solving it. They also found that “lean in” messaging led to greater support for solutions to gender inequality that require women to change or “improve” themselves (versus requiring institutions to change). Kim, Fitzsimmons, and Kay ultimately concluded that “lean in” messaging can lead to “harmful societal beliefs that women—and not unequal systems, structures, and institutions—are to blame” for gender inequality. Kim, J.Y., Fitzsimmons, G.M., and Kay, A.C. (2018) Lean In Messages Increase Attributions of Women’s Responsibility for Gender Inequality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(6):974-1001 https://doi.org/10.1037/psps0000129.
Corporate America readily adopted “lean in” and “empowerment” messaging. Why? Because it gets them off the hook to do the work required to make meaningful institutional changes. Take my former corporate law firm, for example. Rather than address the pervasive institutional biases contributing to the massive disparity in the number of women partners, the firm brought in professional development coaches and provided “special programming” for women attorneys. Do you think male attorneys were offered career coaches and special training programs to “help them be successful in their careers?” Hell no. Male attorneys didn’t “need” those things. Smells like BS.
Let’s call “women’s empowerment” what it really is: maintaining the status quo while insisting we’re making progress towards gender equality.
“Empowerment” Ignores Intersectionality
Buzzwords like “empowerment” often don’t take into account the intersecting forms of discrimination that many women face, such as discrimination based on race, class, sexual orientation, age, and ability. This results in a narrow and exclusionary approach to gender equality and can exacerbate the inequality experienced by the most marginalized women in our communities. We are failing.
Change the Narrative, Change the Results
So, what’s the alternative? How about shifting the focus from “empowering” women to creating environments where women are recognized as equal partners, capable of driving our own progress and contributing to a more just and equitable society. While we’re at it, let’s work on dismantling oppressive structures, challenging ingrained, institutional biases, and promoting genuine equality for everyone rather than gaslighting women into thinking “empowerment” is all they should strive for and all they need. At a minimum, let’s use language that respects women as active agents of change in their own right (and not passive recipients of “empowerment”).
This Women’s History Month, do me and all women a favor and keep your “empowerment” to yourself. I don’t want to be “empowered.” I want an equal voice in our world, equal treatment, equal opportunities, and equal access to resources. Not because I’m a woman. Because I deserve it.