A Simple Way to Empower Yourself When You’re Power-Under
Don’t give in to victim culture — stand up for yourself
The most basic understanding of “empowerment” is driving power towards yourself. But what does it mean in practice?
We’re used to thinking about power as a given, static thing. A “power dynamic” seems to be set up alongside pre-existing roles and conditions, for example:
- An employee doing a 6-month review with their boss
- An “insider” in a community or group, greeting a newcomer and showing them the ropes
- A father paying for a holiday with his adult children
- Female-bodied person speaking to a male-bodied person in a hardware store.
In these situations, most people assume power has already been distributed. There’s not much we can do about it. In extreme cases, this can lead to victim culture, as Sara Ness described it in her Substack. She speaks about dealing with victim mentality from a group facilitator’s standpoint:
“Those examples are what I’d call identity group victimization, aka “I am justified in being power-under because I am a member of a socially power-under identity group. I can therefore call out members of socially power-over identity groups as misusing their power.”
