When I say empowering, I'm talking about something that gives you more agency in society. For example, having an education is typically empowering because it gives you more opportunities. So under my usage of empowering, what's empowering to me IS empowering to others as well.

That’s my understanding of empowering as well. Empowerment also has ties to groups or communities imho. If it benefits or elevates a group of people it’s empowering. It gives them power. Like when women fought for 30 years to have public toilets for women as well, that was empowering because it gave women freedom from the “urinary leash” enabling them to travel further from their homes. Prostitution doesn’t empower women, it may benefit some tiny portion of individuals, who are capable of choosing their own clients and doing it on their own terms every single time, but to the majority prostitution is exploitation, that robs them of power and physical and mental resources.