The term "empowered" itself indicates that the power in question has been gifted to or instilled in the empowered person by someone or something else, rather than something someone goes out and grabs for themselves.
Which only goes to show, you can run all you like from the monkey, but you're doing it on monkey legs.
I dont really like Foucault, but he expresses that everyone has power (given, in different senses and ways) but they simply don't express or exersice it...
So "empowering" someone would, as an expression, refer to give power to someone that does not normally have power... but everyone has power... the thing that changed was simply the facilitation of the expression of that power or helping the other person be conscious of the power they already have...
but that leads me to the problem of expression... how would one then express it accurately?... seems we are stuck on that buzzword, "empowerment"...
'Power' is a goddamn horrible word in political theory because it means so many different things in so many different contexts.
I'm told that this is one of the major stumbling blocks in Foucault, because the French have more precise terminology (which he uses) and which all gets translated as 'power'.
I can't remember all the details, but I think the gist is that Foucault was largely referring to networks-of-power, including power dynamics in relationships where influence (unconscious and not overt) is as important as dominating and obvious exercises of power.
Empowerment definitely does tend to imply an external force, though. If we say something is empowering, we are de facto giving that act/object/person credit for the state we now have, rather than owning it ourselves.
What about empowering one's self?
Generally you empower yourself to do something, which implies there was something preventing you from doing it (even just a lack of confidence or fear of societal disapproval).
That is probably the point where the word implies outside agency less than any other instance. Its rare that you just choose to empower yourself, though.