Chapter 1
How Do We Define Empowerment?
In her best-selling album Luck of the Draw1, Bonnie Raitt recorded a song titled “Something to Talk About” in which she sang the words “let’s give them something to talk about.” Look at the media and hear what they are saying. Political activists. Social activists. The question of empowerment of one group or another comes up almost daily. Even classic literature got in the game more than three centuries ago. In 1667, in his book Paradise Lost, John Milton wrote “Within Hell Gates til now, thou us impow’rd.2” But with all the media chatter, the real question that arises is just what is meant by the term empowerment?
Like beautify, it has many connotations and rests in the eye of the beholder. That does ...
