Empowerment

The idea of empowering others to benefit them as well as the greater social good flourished in the field of social work and the discipline of community psychology. The path to empowerment for those who have been oppressed is said to contain elements of consciousness-raising, education, and solidarity toward social action. Empowerment is a key concept in understanding women's development and freedom within the context of patriarchy. But today critics worry that the idea of empowerment has lost its political framing and connection to collective activism and instead has been reduced to a feeling of empowerment in a self-improvement paradigm.