Delevingne’s ‘Peg the Patriarchy’ vest misses the mark
There’s a lot to unpack in the reactions to Cara Delevingne’s vest, a white number that said ‘Peg the Patriarchy” in scarlet red letters.
While the outfit was designed by Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri for the Met Gala, with the theme of ‘American Independence’ the phrase was trademarked in 2015 by a queer woman of colour named Luna Matatas. Matatas, a sex educator in Toronto, said the message behind the design is intended to “subvert the system of patriarchy” in a provocative manner.
Delevingne said that while she wasn’t going to explain what peg meant and people were going to have to look it up, it was about “sticking it to the man”.
The reactions to the vest itself on social media were varied, some applauding Delevingne for the message, others tagging Matatas and noting the missing credit of the trademarked phrase. Others were displeased with the vest being modelled after a bulletproof vest and another take noted the vest could be seen as a threat of violence or sexual assault and the epitome of White Feminism.
What some takes miss when it’s said it would be better if someone queer was wearing the vest is that Delevingne is genderfluid and identifies as bisexual and pansexual. But, she specifically said it was about women’s empowerment and sexuality, missing the queerness inherent in her statement.
Pegging is a sexual practice where anal sex occurs with a strap-on dildo. Immediately deciding that pegging is a form of sexual assault or seeing it as a form of sexual assault plays into kink-shaming and toxic masculinity as well as queerphobia. Pegging is a sexual act like any other that requires consent from participants and while biological evidence points to the enjoyment of anal stimulation, it is inevitably linked to homosexual men.
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Pegging is a hot topic when it comes to the subversion of control due to heterosexual discourse. Cis women are to be penetrated, cis men are to do the penetrating. This creates a power structure that translates over to queer culture, where there are tops and bottoms and preferences involved and where we see different reactions to femme-presenting people as opposed to masculine-presenting people.
We also see this discourse play out in blood donation restrictions where men who have sex with men and women who have sex with men (who have sex with men) are unable to give blood for three months in the States and Canada. This restriction was relaxed from the original limit of one year due to healthcare difficulties relating to COVID-19. These restrictions are based on homophobia since donations are rigorously tested to rule out any bloodborne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.
When we turn to mass media we see the character of Deadpool brought to the big screen by Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds. Not only is Deadpool pansexual according to canon, in the montage of his relationship with Vanessa we see them wish each other a happy international women’s day while in the act of pegging just as we would see any other sex scene in an R rated movie.
Pegging is a sexual act like any other when we take the sex-shaming out of it, so Peg the Patriarchy is a queer way to say f*ck the patriarchy, a way of taking back power from a system that does not share power with anyone other than those at the top.
But to f*ck with or f*ck up something is to inherently damage or ruin. This militarised vest — a clever comment on the independence of America without the wording — reinforces the idea that being penetrated is demeaning which is in itself very patriarchal, as is the theft of the “Peg the Patriarchy” style from a queer woman of colour, then worn to an event like the Met Gala. An event considered exclusive and prominent where fundraising results in millions of dollars for a glamorous museum of art that is seen as high class.
Now add in the number of Black Lives Matter protestors arrested outside the Met Gala as it happened and the lack of coverage from news organizations at that moment.
The vest and statement therein become another example of white feminism, where ideology is being used as a marketing strategy to succeed within the patriarchy, framing penetration as power and f*cks up what should be a good conversation about intersectional feminism and power structures.
The least she could do was go all in and wear the strap on.
