Thousands of people have needlessly died in Ontario.

The Premier getting emotional about all the wrong things, and then apologizing for being emotional, is a microcosm of his entire toxic tenure as Premier.

If you're a leader & you are dealing with thousands of (largely) preventable deaths, you lose the right to be "emotional" about people being unable to grief their dying loved ones.

And before you praise Doug Ford for getting "choked up", remember that he caused the problem he's so upset about.

In an attempt to challenge toxic ideas about masculinity & sadness, we often OVER correct & immediately praise a man for daring to show emotion.

Anger is an emotion.

Doug Ford has shown a significant amount of anger during this pandemic - Anger at Trudeau, anger at the NDP/Liberals, anger at Ontarians for following the rules he put in place, anger anger.

But we only call him emotional when he cries.

Pretty telling.

In a world where men never get to be vulnerable, when men do cry, people automatically capitulate & assign courage/bravery to those tears.

Abusive men manipulate that fact & cry to seem non-threatening.

My abuser did this often.

I can't know whether Doug Ford was putting on those tears today or not. He seemed mighty frustrated and mighty angry and those are emotions that can make people cry, too.

But I do want us all to self-reflect on why Doug Ford getting choked up is so significant to us.