Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities.

The term empowerment covers a vast landscape of meanings, interpretations, definitions and disciplines ranging from psychology and philosophy to the highly commercialized self-help industry and motivational sciences.

Sociological empowerment often addresses members of groups that social discrimination processes have excluded from decision-making processes through - for example - discrimination based on disability, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Empowerment as a methodology is often associated with feminism: see consciousness-raising.

"Marginalized" refers to the overt or covert trends within societies whereby those perceived as lacking desirable traits or deviating from the group norms tend to be excluded by wider society and ostracized as undesirables.

Sometimes groups are marginalized by society at large, but governments are often unwitting or enthusiastic participants. For example, the U.S. government marginalized cultural minorities, particularly blacks, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act made it illegal to restrict access to schools and public places based on race. Equal opportunity laws which actively oppose such marginalization, allow increased empowerment to occur. They are also a symptom of minorities' and women's empowerment through lobbying.

Bruce Harold Lipton (born October 21, 1944) is an American developmental biologist, who is best known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person's beliefs. He teaches at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic.

Lipton was born in Mt. Kisco, an affluent town in New York. In 1966 he received a B.A. in Biology from C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and then his PhD in developmental biology from the University of Virginia in 1971.

In 1973 he taught anatomy as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin School Of Medicine before coming to St. George's University School of Medicine, where he became a Professor of Anatomy for 3 years. From 1987 to 1992 he was involved in research at Penn State and Stanford University Medical Center. Since 1993 he has been teaching in non-tenure positions at different universities. His publications consist mainly of research on the development of muscle cells.

Lipton has appeared on several radio shows as well as The Elaine Smitha Show and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast episode 165.