Define: Empowering

A few weeks ago, through chasing links from one blog to another, I found a site called The Secret's in the Sauce and while the name alone is enough to cause some interest- the site is even more so (you'll notice their pink and leopard print badge on the left side of my blog). The premises of SITS is that they

are a group of women bloggers dedicated to supporting one another by leaving comments. Lots and lots of comments.

How cool! A site that helps women bloggers connect to other women bloggers and give them some love through comments. I know I love it when someone comments on my blog, so their idea really resonated with me. And through their Saturday Sharefest I've been able to meet women from, literally, all over the world.

Throughout the week they also feature blogs that they find interesting and encourage their followers to go to the featured blogs, get to know the women, and (of course) leave a comment or two. And since subscribding to their feed I've found most of their featured blogs to be a pretty interesting read. But today! Today's features got my attention: Sites dedicated to empowering women.

Excellent! I love empowering women: giving them strength and hope, and encouragement.  And you better believe I am all about following links to sites that have that as their main purpose.

However, I cannot tell you the amount of blood-boiling disgust I had for their "empowering" choices when I clicked on one of the links and found this:

So can someone, anyone! please, please explain to me how this site featuring stories on the anorexic "icons" Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, or Tiger going back to rehab, or Kelly Ripa's tattoo in ANY WAY empowers women?

Because (and I think Webster would agree with Wikipedia here) those do not

increase the spiritual, political, social or economic strength of individuals and communities.

So to SITS: If you want to link to those blogs- great. No problem. I read People Magazine while waiting to check out in the grocery store and click on a link or two when I have the time to see what some celeb has done to royal screw up their life, and I'm a HUGE fan of Kelly's arms- but I don't go to those media outlets because they are empowering. I go to them because they are celebrity gossip.

And to the reader: If you're really looking for ways to empower women, check out these sites or leave a comment and post your own.

1. Kiva: donate money to a woman in Peru, Africa, anywhere.  Use microfunding to help her have the opportunity to achieve her dream
2. Join Rhiannon's Beautiful State of Mind Project and spread the word that beauty so much more than emaciated women in expensive clothing.

Sending SITS a dictionary,