“You say I don’t know I’m beautiful, but what if I did?"
That's how Daysha Edewi begins her riveting takedown of pop culture that repeatedly tells women we don't -- and shouldn't -- know that we're beautiful. The BuzzFeed writer and director calls out musicians including One Direction and Maroon 5 in her new spoken word poem "What If I Knew I Was Beautiful."
Edewi uses her poem as a reminder that women don't need men to assure women of their beauty. “I am not a parking ticket looking for your validation," she says. "Your songs filled with sweet nothings are no longer allowed to park for free. They’re no longer allowed to cheapen my self-esteem.”
If women do in fact think they're beautiful prior to a man assuring them of that fact, Edewi says they're faced with harsh backlash and are considered "bitchy" or "vain."
“What if I looked in the mirror and actually liked what I saw?” Edewi says. “What if I woke up really feeling myself?”
Edewi explained why she wrote the poem on her Tumblr. "What I am saying is that there are far too many songs in which the main take-away is that, as a woman, the only way I can be deemed beautiful is when I don’t know it," she wrote. "And then the only time it is ok for me to see and own my beauty is when a man recognizes it."
Towards the end of her poem Edewi hammers her point home: “Don’t be afraid to be a woman who likes herself.”
Preach.
Also on The Huffington Post:
