Why are left-handers treated as outsiders? It’s just not right
The news that lefthanders excel at some sports but not others confirmed my thoughts that the 10% of people that make up us southpaws are used to punching above our weight. A study published in the journal Biology Letters concludes that being lefthanded is an advantage in sports where time pressures are particularly severe – such as table tennis, or cricket, or squash.
I am the exception to the rule – I manage to be equally rubbish at any sport regardless of whether it be fast or slow. My PE teacher told me at least I had one good tennis shot in me, but I felt that was a backhanded compliment. But if we lefthanders lead at sports such as cricket or tennis, it is yet to make up for the inequality we face in everyday life.
I always held dear the fact I was born a left-hander. It felt like a little badge of honour, like having a little superpower. To this day, I find myself scanning the room to seek out kindred spirits and upon discovering a fellow left-hander, giving them a knowing wink and a smile.
Conversely, I find I am unfairly judged by right-handed folk. “Oh, you’re a lefty,” they say in a tone that would normally be reserved for someone with a terminal illness. In fact, many right-handers still mistakenly believe that left-handed people die younger, a theory long since debunked, thankfully.
Meeting people for the first time is difficult, especially those who offer a handshake at the earliest opportunity from their right side. You either have to accept it and lead with your weaker right hand and face being judged poorly for dispatching such a weedy handshake, or persist with offering the left hand which then forces your new acquaintance with having to put down whatever they are holding in their left hand in order to fulfil a frankly quirky social custom. Why can’t we bump chests and be done with it?
While I have never been forced to favour my right hand by teachers or anyone else in positions of authority, I have still been treated unfairly. Keen to learn the guitar at the age of 11 with a new indie revolution whirring in our social consciousness, I signed up for a lunchtime music club in which we’d be taught the basics. I was met with a sigh, a grunt and a grumpy teacher mumbling something about “having to restring the thing” and: “Can you not use your right hand like everyone else?”
I later self-taught right-handed five years later – turned out it would have been a massive pain to restring the thing after all – but by then I’d missed Britpop so it was all pointless anyway.
Along with using a PC mouse, it’s the only time I have betrayed my left-handedness in favour of convenience. The rest of the time, it’s one big struggle.
Mealtimes at the family table
were fraught with problems when my right-handed brother and I would sit together. We’d end up elbowing each other furiously. Mind you that had nothing to do with being lefthanded, I just hated him.
Society’s inability to cater for lefthanders is an issue that needs tackling. Writing with anything other than a pencil is a chore. Once, when I was provided with a fountain pen to practise neat handwriting at school, there was more ink on my hand than there was on the paper, creating the impression that I had wrestled with a squid.
Novelty coffee cups are a waste of time – the funny messages are always written on the wrong side. The cups that have a tray beneath the drinking reservoir in order to conceal biscuits favours the right-hander, meaning you cover yourself in Hobnobs whenever taking a drink of your brew. Personalised pens almost always see the bearer’s name written from the nib outwards, meaning that lefthanders have to get used to seeing their names upside down.
Kettles are often ergonomically designed to benefit right-handers. Jugs have the measures on the wrong side. Toilet flushes are mostly always on the right. Tin openers are an ordeal. Spiral notebooks are the devil’s work. The list goes on and on.
Yes, there are items specifically designed for left-handers. But these need to be on the high street shelves, not hidden away in some shop resembling Ned Flanders’ Leftorium from The Simpsons.
It’s great that we’re better than you at some sports, and that we’re generally better people – Barack Obama is one of us – but the playing field that is life needs to be levelled up. Stop treating us like outsiders. I may be left-handed, but I’m right.
• Richard Easterbrook is a PR professional and a proud left-hander