The internet had plenty to say about Cara Delevingne’s outfit at the 2021 Met Gala after she arrived wearing a vest with the words ‘Peg the patriarchy’ written across the front.
The supermodel walked the red carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday 13 September wearing an all-white outfit designed by Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri.
By keeping her look relatively understated – white cigarette trousers paired with matching peep-toe heels – she ensured all eyes were on the words written across her torso.
The message “Peg the patriarchy” in bold red lettering, was about “women’s empowerment” and “gender equality”, she told Vogue correspondent Keke Palmer.
“If anyone doesn’t know what this word is, you’re going to have to look it up because I’m not going to explain it,” she said, referring to the term “peg”.
The term “pegging” refers to a sexual act during which a woman performs anal sex on a male with a strap-on sex toy.
Offering somewhat of an explanation, she added: “You know, it’s a bit like, ‘stick it to the man’, if anyone wants to look up the word.”
The term “Peg the patriarchy” was coined and trademarked by Canada-based sex educator Luna Matatas in 2015 to “subvert the system of patriarchy”.
Delevingne’s statement look has divided fans, with some praising the model and others questioning the weight of the message.
“OMG. ‘Peg The Patriarchy’ Met gala does not disappoint. LOVING the slogan outfits,” one person wrote on Twitter.
Another gave their approval in a simple message: “Cara Delevigne is a badass.”
As expected, the outfit also inspired several jokes, with one person tweeting: “Do you know how much the patriarchy would have to pay me to peg it[?]”
The model’s critics argued that the message she was trying to portray was overshadowed by the use of the term “peg”, branding it “crass sex humour”.
“When someone is aware they have no genuine transgressive thoughts so they resort to crass sex humour that is only shocking to people who are similarly sheltered, so they can feel transgressive among peers,” one person wrote.
Another commented: “’Peg the patriarchy’ is straight out of the perennial 2000s advice column thing where women were advised to respond to requests for an*l with ‘you first’ as an expression of Girl Power.”
It is not the first time the vest’s designer, Chiuri, has stood for women’s rights through her work.
Shortly after being appointed the first female creative director at Dior in 2016, she sent a model down the runway in a blue tulle skirt paired with a T-shirt reading “We Should All Be Feminists”, inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay of the same name.
