condescension

Fran

I am a female full Professor with a Ph.D. at a research university in the United States. A “good old boy” colleague who schmoozed his way to full Professor many years ago despite low research productivity insists on speaking to me in a condescending manner: sometimes (especially after I’ve challenged “good old boy” privilege-taking) he talks to me as if I were an ingenue who needs explanations of the way in which a department in which I have worked for over ten years is run; at other times he issues direct orders, as if he were a supervisor (which he is not) and I were his subordinate (which I am not); when he is asked to negotiate with me as an equal over an issue of shared concern, he insists on making the decision and delivering it to me in writing. Sadly, this behavioral pattern is common at my institution (once, when I chaired a committee at the university-wide level, a colleague of equal rank tried to treat me like a secretary, and doubled down when I called him out on his conduct): and my university’s leadership wonders why there are so few female faculty, let alone full Professors!