Happy International Left Handers Day to all my fellow Left Handers!
Left handed people have faced real discrimination and prejudice throughout history, even being caned and humiliated at school and forced to use their right hand well into the 20th century.
Like all prejudices, it’s hard to understand why left handers were so unfairly treated. Apparently, it stemmed from the Latin word for left, “Sinestra”, which also meant ‘improper’ or ‘adverse’. Modern Italian still uses the same root for ‘left’, although not the negative connotations. Eagle-eyed F1 fans may spot it on the left tyre blankets in the Ferrari garage: ‘Anterirore Sinistro’ (Front Left) and ‘Posterirore Sinistro’ (Rear Left).
Whilst there may be less stigma, there remains a myriad of complications that left handers overcome daily in a predominantly right handed designed world.
Offices mostly tend to be set up right handed. I use a left-handed desk in my home office, where the shelving and extra storage and writing spaces are to the left of the computer and keyboard. Standard keyboards usually place numbers in a square on the right hand side but I’ve always used the numbers with the punctuation marks above QWERTY. Thankfully, Mac keyboards are ambidextrous and do not include the separate numbers section.
On-off and control switches are predominantly situated on the right hand side of many things like laptops, printers, and photocopiers for work, and every day items like kitchen appliances. Even the on-off and payment switch on an iPhone is on the right hand side.
Though never corporal punishment, I do recall being prevented from using a left handed hockey stick at secondary school. I kept getting fouls given against me and shouted at by the (rather unpleasant) PE teacher because I had to cross my arms in order to aim with my dominant hand. I was surprisingly accurate considering, but goals would be disallowed because I wasn’t holding the stick properly. I got so fed up, my parents even offered to buy a left handed hockey stick at one point, so I could participate fully in lessons and it wouldn’t cost the school anything, but were told that I just had to play right handed “like everyone else”. You can probably guess what I thought about this, even 30 years ago.
It’s thought that many people could have been held back in their early development and their talents left undiscovered through being unable to use their natural hand. I still don’t believe this applies to me and hockey, however!
So here’s to all my fellow left handers – considering all of these barriers, we’re not doing too badly are we!
Laura Evans, CEO 13th August, 2024