Hello everybody, will try to keep this brief.
I have this co-author with whom I have (theoretically) written three papers now in 3/4* journals and two book chapters. In reality, she has not written a single word of any one of these. They are based on my research, my data, and my ideas. Her role was to read them and comment but since she is not familiar with the relevant literature and refused to read it, her comments were (I now realise with more experience) at best superficial, at worst, misguided, sending me in the wrong direction. During the past three years or so, she has published just one other peer reviewed paper, which was written by someone else too. But, she is powerful in her field for reasons that would take a while to explain.
The point I am getting to is that she is often verbally aggressive towards me, in front of other people. At a meeting last week with some distinguished academics I feel that she deliberately set out to humiliate me. She is also often highly inappropriate - at one meeting she suggested I should get my tits out, for example! But on the other hand she can also do a kind of faux nicey-nice, which implies that she is a great support to the lowly whowho. She is convinced that I owe everything to her and that she has done me many great favours (she hasn't).
I no longer 'write' with her (thank God), but now I have reached the point that I don't actually want to be in the same room with her. In a few weeks, I am meant to be presenting at a meeting she has arranged, but desperately want to withdraw. (There is no advantage to me in presenting). But I am scared about pissing her off.
Has anyone been in a similar situation, not specifically, but generally, with someone like this? Is this part of academic life and should I just suck it up? Or should I stand up for myself and say enough is enough? (I am a lecturer, she is a professor, and we are no longer at the same institution).
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How to handle toxic former co-author
15 replies
whowhowhoeee · 31/10/2016 12:15
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