What empowerment means

Does empowerment mean being able to do whatever you want to do, to treat people however you want to treat them, to force others to comply with your will, overriding their dignity, feelings, and equal humanity? If not, what should it mean?

In my years of doing this work, I certainly have encountered many enablers of such distorted thinking. Whatever their motivation—be it a fear of speaking up for equality and justice, or be it a misguided belief that overcorrection of imbalances doesn't itself prolong imbalance, or be it simply a lack of care toward anyone but oneself (or one's own circles)—I can't let myself be complicit. The temptation to give in is strong, whether it's the desire to be a people pleaser, or the clout one achieves by always being a giver (even to one's own hurt), or one's genuine sympathy for the pain or sadness or discomfort someone says they feel. If I lose sight of the big-picture goal, to help create a world where individuals are treated as individuals (not as representatives of their perceived category) and where freedom implies responsibility (not autonomous, one-sided entitlement), then I'll make in-the-moment compromises that could undermine a core reason I do this work at all.

I'm not just here to help people love themselves, at the exclusion of loving others. I want people to learn how to articulate their boundaries, but not in a way that increases some expectation that this means they should also control others. That's not empowerment, in any virtuous sense.

I had a recent shoot with someone who "didn't feel empowered" by the experience. (These were her words to me today.) It was a situation where we both knew she was exploring some things that were new for her (despite how tame they were) and I felt both the joy and the responsibility to give her ideas she could choose to do or not do, with the agreement that my enthusiasm for various concepts would not be interpreted as pressure, and the promise that she would be honest with me at each stage in the process (not expecting me to read her mind). She broke both sides of that agreement, and has chosen to consider her own retrospective feelings as more valid than mine (explicitly because I'm a male and "can't understand what it's like for women"). She told me in no uncertain terms that she's just not concerned about my side at all, and all that matters to her is her ability to dictate what I do with the images we made and the time I invested. (As an aside, I've generally noticed that the more giving I am with these shoots, the more entitlement the recipient of my generosity feels.)

Meanwhile, a complicating factor: a friend of hers agreed to shoot with me too. We got a date on our calendars right away, because I was leaving the area soon after (perhaps for good). But then she told me (sorta last-minute) that she'd saved the wrong date, which meant I was in the uncomfortable position of needing her help pretty expediently to figure out what we should do, while knowing that communicating such a need could be misinterpreted any number of unsavory ways. Unfortunately, the worst did happen: with me recognizing and communicating the stress inherent in the situation, she chose to view it as me causing the stress, blamed me for that, and complicated my situation with the woman I shot with, by telling her I "made her uncomfortable." But no one makes anyone feel anything (and we have to recognize that and make allowance for it), and I only communicated the discomfort; I did not cause it. We were in the situation because of a mistake she made, but I did everything I could to not just acknowledge the mistake and accept her apology, but also to involve her as an equal partner in resolving the situation. Somehow that got twisted into cause for accusing me, and souring my other shoot too. This put all of us in a lose-lose situation.

I would like to see more photographers (and models) speaking up for mutuality in this work. It hurts all of us when someone says, "Yeah, it's not right, some of the unfairness I experience, but it's better to just give in and let them overstep." In a sense, that wishy-washiness is understandable if the only thing that matters is making images. But I do this work because of the people it makes us into. Making images is secondary.

I am resolved that I will put fair-to-all empowerment first, not letting myself be either a doormat or a dictator. I will do my part, in hopes that others do likewise.