WHATS WRONG WITH EMPOWERMENT

Although it has stimulated useful and important research and theory in community psychology, the concept of empowerment is problematic. This article criticizes two assumptions and values underlying the concept of empowerment: (a) individualism, leading potentially to unmitigated competition and conflict among those who are empowered; and (b) a pref erence for traditionally masculine concepts of mastery, power, and con trol over traditionally feminine concerns of communion and cooperation . The challenge to community psychology is to develop a vision that in corporates both empowerment and community, despite the paradoxical nat ure of these two phenomena.