Before this season started, I made a declaration: I would only field a 5&5 (or 5&4 short) team for the entire season. Many team captains agreed this was a good thing. More than lip service, I wanted to show we are committed to having gender equality in the sport, as the WBSC rules want the game to be played. It is encouraging to see most, though not all, of the teams in our division have followed suit.

I did a bit of work on crafting a simple byelaw for the league, which would address any concerns of those teams who were still depending on a 6&4 lineup. Even with great support in front of the season for this addition, and with the ability to play 5&4 short (which was always there), and even though 6&4 has no evidence of encouraging women to play but plenty of evidence showing it discourages women from playing, and is not allowed in the WBSC rules, the league decided to not implement my suggestion, not remove this local byelaw which contradicts the WBSC rules, and only vaguely committed to looking at the issue – effectively, doing absolutely nothing.

There have been consequences to our approach, taking direct action to make positive changes for our league. They are very serious consequences.

1) Alan O’Rafferty, a senior member of the Castleknock Softball Club, was disappointed when I, as team captain of the Bearcats, publicly committed the team to gender equality. Disappointed because he couldn’t control what I said, couldn’t control what I did with the Bearcats lineup, and how we decided something without his input and/or blessing. It was a choice between accepting gender equality in his own team (the Wildcats), or risk the appearance of “looking silly” if his team took a different position and chose to bench women in favor of men.

2) Subsequently, an umpire verbally sexually harassed — one could legitimately say verbally sexually assault, it is a very strong term and accurately describes the impact this language has — the women players on the Castleknock Bearcats home field during a game. As captain of the Bearcats, as a witness to the harassment, and in fulfilment of the wishes of several of the women present at the time of the harassment, including one who was directly target by the verbal assault, I lodged an official complaint with the league. Alan O’Rafferty used his position on the Softball Leinster Committee to intercept and quash the complaint, obstructing the due process to which both the accused and the victims were entitled.

3) In a further act of sabotage, the Castleknock Softball Club management group generated an alternative complaint, with the transparent purpose of undermining my position on the team, and to obviate my complaint by proposing an alternate procedure. The hypocrisy is entirely consistent with the ultimate goal of control and domination, over all things relating to softball in Castleknock.

4) Although receipt of both complaints was confirmed (by Peter Murnaghan and Gill Sinnamon) Softball Leinster failed to process either complaint under the terms of its own procedures.

5) In light of this failure, I opened a grievance with the national governing body, Softball Ireland, and an investigator was appointed.

Even though several people have given statements claiming that a Softball Leinster umpire committed verbal sexual harassment during a Castleknock Bearcats game, and even though no less than two official complaints were made to the league about this specific incident, and even though there is clear and verifiable written evidence that Alan O’Rafferty used his positions in the Castleknock Softball Club management group and the Committee of Softball Leinster to obstruct the processing of these complaints… the investigator has somehow found that none of the above actions are inappropriate or inconsistent with Softball Ireland rules or ethics.

This finding does not change the incredible instances of serious misconduct by the members of the Softball Leinster committee members. It further calls into question the integrity of the governing body.

You may think: why the disgression? Well, the two incidents are intractably linked.

Alan O’Rafferty, a senior club manager and Secretary of Softball Leinster, started this off by displaying his total contempt for the principle of gender parity and equal status for women in softball. He then suppressed the club’s and the league’s response to an umpire’s verbal sexual harassment against women players. This manipulation has now been validated by the committee of Softball Leinster, and also by the governing body, Softball Ireland.

The complete failure of the application of due process, coupled with the blatant cronyism of the entire official fabric of the regional and national governing bodies, cannot be allowed to go unchecked. That these actions of extreme misconduct are allowed should embarrass everyone. It hurts all efforts to enact change for good.

It also posits a very worrying question for men and women who are verbally assaulted on the pitch, in yet another show of a lack of support for them.

Will there be no recourse for victims, nor repercussions for abusers, and will nothing happen to perpetrators as long as they are pathetic old men that play softball in Ireland?

So far, there have been no consequences for these people. It’s the patriarchy! You can’t win, right?

Wrong.

They have colluded together in defiance of the principles of the WBSC and of common decency, and they should be held accountable.