Did Thabo Mbeki cry when he was forced to resign?

South Africa’s erstwhile president would have wept if he’d been Australian. In fact, he’d have bawled his eyes out.

This is another key difference between Australia and South Africa.

Australian men, especially politicians, cry in public. The land down under might have an endemic drought problem, but not when it comes to the tear ducts of its male citizens.

Which is odd, because, like South Africans, who will bliksem you for no reason whatsoever, Aussie blokes have a reputation for being tough. They are stereotypical Bruces; rough hard-drinking ute-driving tattooed types.

Nonetheless, they’re not too tough to cry. Like Morris Iemma , who bawled when he was forced to resign as Premier of New South Wales. Brendan Nelson was photographed, tear glistening on one cheek like a limpid drop of dew, after he was ousted as leader of the opposition.

The pilot of the brand spanking new Qantas A380 Captain Peter Probert got all choked up speaking about the significance of the occasion after he landed in Sydney on Sunday morning. His late father had flown the first Qantas 747 almost 37 years earlier. “It’s special for me because of the history associated with it. It’s just great to follow in his footsteps — I always wanted to fly like Dad,” he told onlookers in the hangar where the expensive new investment was parked.

Even the hardened Aussie submariner interviewed in a segment on the Australian equivalent of Carte Blanche, Sixty Minutes, got all misty-eyed and choked up when asked about his woif and keeds.

Why do Aussie blokes cry so much in public? Is the national penchant for public displays of weeping, henceforth known as PDW, suggestive of an essentially egalitarian culture, where men are not afraid to show the kind of emotion typically associated with women? I don’t know.

Australia may have been a pioneer in the advancement of women’s rights, but there are still distinctly reactionary elements of sexism here. Take the ongoing childcare debate, for example, or, in a more extreme case, the suicide of a female ambulance worker in response to years of sexist bullying.

So I am not sure there is a clear and obvious explanation, which is somewhat worrying, because without an understanding of why this sort of thing happens, the tendency toward teariness may be catching. Can you imagine Ngconde Balfour blubbering away (no pun intended)? Charles Nqakula? Essop “Stoepkakker” Pahad?

Perish the thought.