I want to empower her. I hear this a lot. I understand the idea. And yet, I maintain, you cannot empower someone. Where I think we often go wrong is, we say empower, but what we really mean is overpower.

Within the modes of discourse, I have often been a fan of The Essay of Definition. Coupled with this simplistic, overused style, I will add a little pet named, Compare and Contrast.

(Now, the obligatory introduction.) According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, empower means to give official authority or legal power to, or to promote the self-actualization or influence of. Common use: I want to empower her to have a great birth experience.

Many of us would like to think we are such convincingly dynamic childbirth educators, doulas, empowered-women-who-have-had-great-birth-experiences – that simply through our shared thoughts and feelings, we can convince a woman to come over from the Dark Side and want to have something like we had or believed should be had.

To affect with overwhelming intensity the way a woman feels and interject one’s own agenda is not empowering, but overpowering. Likewise, to overcome by superior force her intended desires in regards to birth is to overpower her. When, overcome by passion, zest, zeal, and one’s own pre-conceived notions about the way a woman should birth, one may begin to provide…more power than is needed or desirable. Yet these are the ways we often try to empower.

This is just not reality-based.

Empowerment is not giving a woman your personal tools and teaching her how to build your perfect birth. Empowerment is opening the shed, allowing her to become familiar with all the tools held within, and then stepping back and confidently trusting she will build for herself the birth that is right for her, her baby, and her family.