The phrase "a powerlessness" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a state of lacking power or control in a particular situation or context.
Example: "In the face of overwhelming challenges, she felt a powerlessness that was difficult to overcome."
Alternatives: "a lack of power" or "an absence of control."
That the war over conflicting standards of courtesy and behavior is being fought on airliners isn't surprising, Ms. Rutledge said, because people feel a powerlessness boarding an airplane.
But Mr. Keeb's government, formed Nov. 28, has found itself virtually paralyzed by rivalries that have forced it to divvy up power along lines of regions and personalities, by unfulfillable expectations that Colonel Qaddafi's fall would bring prosperity, and by a powerlessness so marked that the national army is treated as if it were another militia.
It was infectious, but above all it was comforting — comforting during a time of absolute powerlessness: a powerlessness felt by all, but perhaps by no one more than the Palestinians of Gaza, something my father understood and, in his small ways, sought to treat.
Many retirees expressed a feeling of powerlessness, a sense that they stand to lose the benefits they worked a lifetime for because of things beyond their control.
A feeling of powerlessness, a loss of balance.
Journalists spoke movingly about the loss of their friends and colleagues and of a resulting powerlessness so intense that all they could do was bury their dead.
A feeling of powerlessness, and a fear of being exposed, animates many of these stories.
Here the slow drip, drip of madness is ignited by rage and fueled by a sense of powerlessness and a soul-annihilating paternalism.
But his comments today seemed also to underscore a sense of powerlessness in a fire season that was on track to become the most devastating in 90 years.
Figuratively it is a declaration of powerlessness in an economy where it is getting harder for the regular guy to succeed.
He kept them "in a state of powerlessness," prosecutors said, "through a program of prolonged physical, sexual and psychological violence".
