The first hint that the word “empowerment” had been hijacked by a force with sinister intentions came, for me, back in 2005 during an episode of ITV pop show CD:UK. That dark space.

You might remember the incident: during a quick interview about the single Don’t Cha, Pussycat Dolls spokeswoman Nicole Scherzinger put forward the view that the song was about female empowerment. The interviewer, when told this, looked briefly puzzled.

For Scherzinger – or the media team who’d prepped her to sell CDs – “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me? Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?” was strong feminist rhetoric about sisterhood, a cry for women to support one another and fight the harmful effects of patriarchy as a united front. It certainly wasn’t a narcissist telling a dude she likes that his girlfriend looks crap – it was deeper than that.

Or so the Pussycat Dolls and their marketing department were hoping viewers of Saturday morning TV would think, giving them permission to sing along with the mean lyrics, and go buy the song for their brick-sized MP3 player or Walkman. Dark spaces indeed.

The word “empowerment” being linked to products aimed at women that are actually kind of cruel to women is now ubiquitous. Selling an action film that features one lonely female character who can spin-kick, while also showing full cleavage? Marketers marketing will tell you that she hasn’t been added to the roster of characters as a token to fool the feminists, and she isn’t just there to add boobs’n’buttocks to the poster. No, she’s an “empowering female character”.

When launching any product designed to exploit women who feel insecure about aspects of their physical form, the message isn’t that women are disgusting and sure to die alone if they don’t use it. No: just that using the product will “empower them to feel confident”. Confident that they’re putting in the correct amount of work to fit an ideal instituted by people with more money and influence than them – sure – but mainly, confident. Until the tube runs out.

If you haven’t yet found the word ringing hollow with all this happening, here comes Protein World with another heavy hint of the sinister shenanigans going on with the word “empowerment”: its new campaign featuring Khloé Kardashian. You might remember Protein World as the meal replacement powder company that had its “Are you beach body ready?” ad banned by the Advertising Standards Authority a few years back, after many complaints and defaced train station posters. And you might remember Khloé Kardashian as … one of the Kardashians. According to the press release announcing the six-month campaign we’re heading for, the team-up will be “celebrating empowered young people who want to be their best selves, by looking good and feeling great”. There’s the magic word again: empowered.

The Protein World homepage currently yells the question “Can you keep up with a KARDASHIAN?” – and those who wouldn’t answer that with “Why ever would I want to?” can click through to assorted pictures of Khloé wearing impractical-looking exercise gear while looking pensive, mixed with an extended testimony about the protein powders. When studying this presentation for signs of empowerment, you can detect straight away that Khloé feels empowered to sit down while looking blankly at a beaker full of liquid.

“Authority of power given to someone to do something” – Khloé is doing something, so it fits the Oxford Dictionary definition of empowerment. “The process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s right” – sort of that, too. It’s not the empowerment of, say, swinging an axe around, learning a new skill, or flexing intelligence and integrity, but then again, maybe sometimes power lies in being able to sit and stare at a plastic container while being paid to do so. No one is definitely lying.

But, if it’s true, then the word “empowerment” no longer holds any meaning at all now. It’s a word – a feeling, too; a necessity – that has been carefully co-opted and, as a result, drained of its power by those looking to sell. Whenever you hear the word “empowerment” as part of an advertising campaign (Kardashian and Scherzinger-affliated or not) you can be sure those behind it have no genuine motivation to help you, not even inadvertently. See it as a shortcut through the bullshit, and silently thank the marketeer that decided to be exploitative by using it. Empower yourself into considering the word when you see it, and don’t be fooled into buying.