Your response is likely the most helpful one I have received in this thread.  It seems really to me then that empowerment isn't particularly about gender at all, but rather about differences in general and overcoming them.  It's about feeling good for who you are and what you do, regardless of others.  I still don't entirely get how and why some people express and use it (at least ostensibly), but at least I understand a bit better where it's coming from.

Thank you for your comment.