Rethinking Empowerment

“Empowerment” has become one of the most widely used words in contemporary feminism. It appears in social media, advertising, corporate culture, and political debate. Yet as the term has become more popular, its meaning has shifted. Where empowerment once referred to collective struggles to challenge and change oppressive social structures, it is now often used to describe individual confidence, choice, or self-expression—even when those choices take place within unequal conditions.

This dissertation examines how that shift happened and why it matters. Tracing the history of the concept from the 1960s to today, I show that empowerment has moved from a political project aimed at transforming power relations to a language for navigating and optimising one’s position within them. I argue that this change relies on an overly individual understanding of freedom and autonomy, one that overlooks how social norms and structural inequalities shape people’s options and preferences. As a result, practices that adapt to injustice are frequently celebrated as empowering.

 In response, I propose a revised understanding of empowerment. Empowerment should not simply describe feeling confident or making choices. Rather, it should refer to the process by which individuals and groups work to transform the social relations that produce and sustain oppression. On this view, genuine personal empowerment depends on collective change and cannot be reduced to personal liberation alone.