This Khloé Kardashian campaign finally strips ‘empowerment’ of all meaning | Phoebe-Jane Boyd

The first hint that the word “empowerment” had been hijacked by a force with sinister intentions came, for me, back in 2005 during an episode of ITV pop show CD:UK. That dark space.

You might remember the incident: during a quick interview about the single Don’t Cha, Pussycat Dolls spokeswoman Nicole Scherzinger put forward the view that the song was about female empowerment. The interviewer, when told this, looked briefly puzzled.

For Scherzinger – or the media team who’d prepped her to sell CDs – “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me? Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?” was strong feminist rhetoric about sisterhood, a cry for women to support one another and fight the harmful effects of patriarchy as a united front. It certainly wasn’t a narcissist telling a dude she likes that his girlfriend looks crap – it was deeper than that.

Or so the Pussycat Dolls and their marketing department were hoping viewers of Saturday morning TV would think, giving them permission to sing along with the mean lyrics, and go buy the song for their brick-sized MP3 player or Walkman. Dark spaces indeed.

The word “empowerment” being linked to products aimed at women that are actually kind of cruel to women is now ubiquitous. Selling an action film that features one lonely female character who can spin-kick, while also showing full cleavage? Marketers marketing will tell you that she hasn’t been added to the roster of characters as a token to fool the feminists, and she isn’t just there to add boobs’n’buttocks to the poster. No, she’s an “empowering female character”.

When launching any product designed to exploit women who feel insecure about aspects of their physical form, the message isn’t that women are disgusting and sure to die alone if they don’t use it. No: just that using the product will “empower them to feel confident”. Confident that they’re putting in the correct amount of work to fit an ideal instituted by people with more money and influence than them – sure – but mainly, confident. Until the tube runs out.

If you haven’t yet found the word ringing hollow with all this happening, here comes Protein World with another heavy hint of the sinister shenanigans going on with the word “empowerment”: its new campaign featuring Khloé Kardashian. You might remember Protein World as the meal replacement powder company that had its “Are you beach body ready?” ad banned by the Advertising Standards Authority a few years back, after many complaints and defaced train station posters. And you might remember Khloé Kardashian as … one of the Kardashians. According to the press release announcing the six-month campaign we’re heading for, the team-up will be “celebrating empowered young people who want to be their best selves, by looking good and feeling great”. There’s the magic word again: empowered.

The Protein World homepage currently yells the question “Can you keep up with a KARDASHIAN?” – and those who wouldn’t answer that with “Why ever would I want to?” can click through to assorted pictures of Khloé wearing unpractical-looking exercise gear while looking pensive, mixed with an extended testimony about the protein powders. When studying this presentation for signs of empowerment, you can detect straight away that Khloé feels empowered to sit down while looking blankly at a beaker full of liquid.

“Authority of power given to someone to do something” – Khloé is doing something, so it fits the Oxford Dictionary definition of empowerment. “The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s right” – sort of that, too. It’s not the empowerment of, say, swinging an axe around, learning a new skill, or flexing intelligence and integrity, but then again, maybe sometimes power lies in being able to sit and stare at a plastic container while being paid to do so. No one is definitely lying.

But, if it’s true, then the word “empowerment” no longer holds any meaning at all now. It’s a word – a feeling, too; a necessity – that has been carefully co-opted and, as a result, drained of its power by those looking to sell. Whenever you hear the word “empowerment” as part of an advertising campaign (Kardashian and Scherzinger-affliated or not) you can be sure those behind it have no genuine motivation to help you, not even inadvertently. See it as a shortcut through the bullshit, and silently thank the marketeer that decided to be exploitative by using it. Empower yourself into considering the word when you see it, and don’t be fooled into buying.

This Khloé Kardashian campaign finally strips ‘empowerment’ of all meaning | Phoebe-Jane Boyd

I feared my life lacked meaning. Cancer pushed me to find some | Bradford Frost

It was late. I was drunk, nearing my 35th birthday this past May, alone in a dank college dorm room, attending my five-year grad school reunion.

The journal entry I wrote that night was just one line: “I’m not the man I want to be.”

As reunion charades go, nothing about my life actually suggested I was off track. I had ambitious public service aspirations; worked tenaciously; loved fiercely; wrote confidently about equal opportunity and the American dream; bought into and unabashedly endorsed my adopted hometown of Detroit as the best place in the country to work with meaning and purpose. I’d published a book. I’d supported my wife through cancer, relapse, and now four years of remission. I even ran a marathon.

But my journal admission reflected two longstanding personal challenges. First, despite all my accomplishments, I carried a deeply held internal anxiety about being “good enough” to meet my ambitions. Second, I believed my alcohol abuse posed a serious threat to it all. Combined, they exposed my biggest fear: was my life of meaning and purpose as I envisioned it slipping through my fingers? I decided to make a change.

After nearly 20 years of various cycles of alcohol abuse, moderation and abstinence, I concluded I would take one last shot at forging a balanced approach to drinking before turning to sobriety. I’d read about a drug called naltrexone, which is a pill that helps mitigate and manage alcohol cravings and abuse. After sporadically trying it over the prior year, I decided to use it every day for the next three months.

Change came quickly. Two months in, my weekly consumption had cut in half; it would cut in half again by early October. I lost 20 pounds and felt great. In tears, I confided to my wife, “I’ve finally broken through.”

“I’m so proud of you,” my wife replied. “I’m so grateful you found a path that works. Let’s stick with it.”

That was Monday, 10 October. Two days later, I was diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer. Less than 15% of people with my diagnosis survive five years.

This prompted a swift resolution of my other core challenge: I would no longer allow my anxiety about “living the right way” interfere with being my true self in all dimensions of this life. There would no longer be any distinction between the “representative version” of me online versus living every day with full authenticity. Any other way would be a total waste of time.

I’ve embraced the news as an invitation to be my most honest, vulnerable and wholehearted self. I live every day as fully integrated and courageously as possible. I don’t waver.

One key outlet has been a podcast I started with my wife and best friend called Defending Your Life, where we process in real time the unfiltered experience, fears and reality of dealing with stage IV cancer. I write now more directly, less esoterically, about my experience on my blog.

Although my opportunities to achieve my public service or other professional goals down the road may now be limited by time or strength, I now know they won’t be hobbled by inauthenticity.

Most importantly, I’ve come to recognize that I have lived a life of meaning and purpose. A life rich with love and connection. Some have even generously shared that I’ve lived a life that has inspired others. And, having worked through my demons, I’m able to forgive and be proud of myself too.

Of course, what’s scary now is while there is so much to live for, this disease, despite all the science, love and everything else needed to take it on, could very well ultimately beat me. I had surgery in October and am facing upcoming systemic treatments over the next 6-12 months, and it remains to be seen whether that will make me one of the 3-6% who achieve a “complete response”, or the 94% who end up somewhere else along the kidney cancer progression line.

The truth is, we’re all terminal. I could also get hit by a bus tomorrow. Or I could beat the odds and live till I’m 90. But whatever my time left on this earth, I’ll now endeavor forward with some earned resolve.

I am the person I want to be. I’m not afraid.

I feared my life lacked meaning. Cancer pushed me to find some | Bradford Frost