"Empower" this

From Dictionary.com:

–verb (used with object)
1. to give power or authority to; authorize, esp. by legal or official means: I empowered my agent to make the deal for me. The local ordinance empowers the board of health to close unsanitary restaurants.
2. to enable or permit: Wealth empowered him to live a comfortable life.

"Empower" seems to be the trendy buzzword. And I hate trendy buzzwords.

Maybe it's because October is

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

and we've all been hearing how mammograms empower women.

Now obviously, I can't argue that mammograms have been instrumental in catching and diagnosing breast cancer.

But I've been gettin 'em pretty regularly now for...oh...about 20 years or so...and I'm here to tell ya...they've never made me feel empowered. They've made me feel...relieved. They've made me feel...concerned. They've made me nearly piss my pants in pain.

But empowered? Not so much. I don't call it "empowering". I call it takin care of business. Period. Nobody gave me the authority to get regular mammograms. Nobody enabled me or permitted me to get regular mammograms.

It's my body. I can choose to take care of it. Or not. Nobody's empowering me to do so.

If you can't afford a mammogram, there are some great programs out there that enable you to get 'em for free. But enable isn't the current, trendy buzzword, is it? "Enable" sounds like "help". But we don't wanna say "helping" women, do we? Gawd forbid! Women don't need "help"...they need empowering.

Locally, the 7th Annual

Women's Lifestyle Show

is coming up. On tv, the spokesperson is touting empowering seminars in one breath and some soap opera hottie in the next.

Now, I'm not knockin the Women's Lifestyle Show...it's probably fine...if you're into a buncha yammering women, pushin and shovin to get to the freebies first. But I dunno...maybe it's me, but I just can't see where droolin over some young stud is empowering.

I've drooled over a couple young studs in my lifetime...and I've never felt particularly empowered.

Gettin a mammogram doesn't empower me. Listening to a seminar about "winning recipes from local and state fairs" or learning how to "identify my strengths and weaknesses in order to enhance daily life" (WTF??) doesn't empower me.

Gimme a lobster dinner and a couple-three good orgasms. That's empowering.