It’s not only self-help or entrepreneurship products that are sold as tools for “empowerment” today. It’s just about everything: makeup, clothing, workout equipment, vitamins, office supplies… Whole brands are built around the promise that a purchase won’t just solve your problem, it’ll make you a better, more fulfilled person. But empowerment isn’t for sale—only the status quo.

In this episode, I talk with writer and coach Kelly Diels about empowerment marketing and what she calls the “female lifestyle empowerment brand.” You’ll also hear from independent beauty writer Jessica DeFino about how empowerment is leveraged by the beauty industry.

Footnotes:

• Learn more about Kelly Diels
• Learn more about Jessica DeFino
• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
• Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
• How to be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment by Skye Cleary
• Helen Gurley Brown as quoted in Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• “The Rhetoric of the Image” by Roland Barthes