Nightmare PhD supervisor. Help?

Q

I've attended a couple of universities and had a very good higher education experience. This, however, was before I started my PhD. My PhD was fairly rocky at the beginning, but I was eventually paired with someone who I thought was the perfect supervisor. He seemed more than willing to meet with me, interested in my work, and even bought me books and paid for my research trips. Then things started to go down hill. A PhD student pulled me aside and said my supervisor had developed an unhealthy obsession with me and had been making inappropriate remarks (comments about my figure and expressing his desire to sleep with me). I confronted him with this and he initially denied it, but then admitted to it, adding that he'd tell me why he said it but he doesn't think he should, and 'there's nothing wrong with a PhD supervisor dating his student.' I told him it made me uncomfortable and left. Months later, he made a pass at me and I told him nothing would happen. And upon finding out that I had a boyfriend, he decided to insult him in front of me by saying how 'disgusting' we are for being an interracial couple and how 'all women are bitches'. Again, I left. Since then, he has gotten drunk and shouted at me in public (thankfully there were witnesses from our university), and upon finding out a professor had grabbed my hair at a conference, leaving me pretty distressed, we both attended he told me 'what do you expect, how many attractive female PhD students do you see?' I stayed with him for two years because he told me that I would never get an academic job if I change supervisors. I've since learnt that this was total manipulation. Although I've got a new supervisor, I've had to have regular therapy sessions because my confidence is completely shattered. I don't want this happening to another woman. What should I do?

J

It sounds terrible to have supervisors like this. These days, university becomes more and more business like, supervisors and tutors are all changing to be very different. I think you need to be very clear about what you want. As you mentioned: academic job? if so, there must be other universities do your subject and you can try to move your research to other places to have a new start. Or you want a good research reputation? then again, you need to find a good research team and supervisor to achieve this.

45235