People Are Pissed Over This NC Billboard’s Definition Of 'Real Men' And 'Real Women'

North Carolina has enough societal debates these days... and yet, one advertiser still decided to take a DJ Khaled approach to the situation: #AnotherOne.

Yes, the Tar Heel state has another one: another controversy, that is, even though it's a small one.

This time, the conversation revolves around a billboard that was erected alongside Interstate 40 West, near Winston-Salem.

The message is only seven words long, but it definitely offends people countrywide.

It reads,

Real men provide. Real women appreciate it.

Yikes.

The organization that purchased the billboard has chosen to remain anonymous, WSMV-TV reports. The price, however, is known.

The ad cost $20,000, the president of Whiteheart Outdoor Advertising told WSMV.

The president, Bill Whiteheart, also tried to distance himself from the actual content of the message.

He said,

We're not supportive of or in opposition to the message. We're just the messenger.

In other words, he went with a tried and tested proverb: "My name Bennett and I ain't in it!"

One person who IS in it, though? ("It" being the discussion NC now has on its hands.)

Molly Grace.

Grace is mad at the obvious thing you would expect many women (and men, frankly) to be mad at: the fact that the billboard implicitly perpetuates the idea of women as bystanders.

Grace wrote in a Facebook post,

We are NOT protesting that the sign is capable of existing, or the people who put it up, or the ad agency, or the right to put it up. We are protesting patriarchy and sexism, and that this antiquated way of thinking about women exists at all. We are protesting the implied demand that women be silent and appreciate, regardless of whatever circumstances, their role as non-providers.

Grace is a North Carolina native who told WSMV she has never organized a protest before. But she definitely will now that the billboard is up.

Her Facebook post calls for hundreds of people to protest near the sign on Sunday.

The billboard provides yet another story that puts North Carolina in the news with respect to how different groups are being treated and talked about.

Today, it's a sign about gender roles.

Other days, it can be a bathroom bill that regulates which spaces transgender people can occupy, or voting laws that judges deem "racist."

All of those subjects beg an important question that needs to be asked of the state these days: Um, North Carolina, WYD?

Citations: WSMV-TV