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My kind has had it bad. Not just in past decades, but since the medieval age of sword and bow. We have been singled out among the crowd, ridiculed for our uniqueness and murdered for the recreation of God. We are “lefties”, the progeny of the Devil, spawn of Satan. We were put to death because mankind viewed us as monsters. The word sinister comes from the Latin word for left. The truth is left-handed people are not monsters, witches, or children of the underworld. We are simply men and women whose brains developed differently, no more frightening or strange than, say, someone who can curl their tongue.
Lefties had, have, and perhaps forever will have difficulties to overcome that the vast majority of humans – “righties”, to be fair – will never be forced to experience. Left-handed people are required to develop mentally at a faster rate then right-handed people. This isn’t a dire warning that one day an army of evil left-handed people will overthrow the government and take the jobs away from righties, enslaving them at their leisure, but a hopeful wish to point out the inequalities found when growing up as a lefty in a right-handed world.
Throughout this report, several scenarios will be introduced, all of which are typical incidents that appear in the lives of average lefties. In all of them I shall use a character, Suzie, because it sounds cute and sweet and deceiving enough to sway you to my reasoning!
Suzie is in grade two. Her teacher has given the class a cut and paste assignment. She races towards the crafts table, only to find that the one and only pair of left-handed scissors were taken by another lefty in the class. This may sound fallacious, but don’t you feel sorry for her? This is a common problem in classrooms. The budget schools are forced to work under does not provide enough money to supply lefty scissors to all lefty students. It is impractical for schools to invest in hordes of lefty scissors, preparing for a worst-case scenario when the whole school is left-handed, but perhaps measures can be put in place. Schools could buy the scissors and in turn sell them to the students. Writing books could have wider left margins so lefties can fit their hand there in order to write properly. There is a handy – pardon the pun – new twist on the conventional binder, useful for when little Suzie makes it into grade nine. It is a binder with rings that pull tight, allowing easy access to those hard to reach areas of the page. This is a small step in the right direction.
Next, look at the pen in your hand. Does it have writing on it? Now, hold the pen in your left hand. Although it is a trivial thing, does it not seem irritating that the letters are upside down? With the time and money required, is it too much to ask for the words to be printed on both sides of the pen, one side for lefties and the other for righties? Will Suzie ever know what brand of pencil her mother buys her?
Even in the information age, the discrimination continues. Computer mice are nearly always right-handed, and although many now come with the ability to reverse the buttons, this is impractical for a computer with multiple users. Office space is designed for right-handed people as well. The monitor is to the right of the chair, the mouse is on the right and all of the buttons on the base unit are to the right. Left-handed joysticks and mice are difficult to track down, and often need to be ordered in. Couldn’t school computer labs, offices and Internet cafés devote at least one computer to the 15% of the population that would like to have a break?
A quick search on the Internet can open up a whole score of e-stores willing to sell left-handed equipment, from scissors to golf clubs. Many ancient tools used by our ancestors, some up to 2.5 million years old, were designed for left-handed people! Why now, with advancement in so many fields of technology, are we suddenly experiencing a deficit? One can only hope that this problem, this lack of equality between two types of people – however trivial – can be resolved before any more Suzies have to suffer.
Being left-handed has always been a problem. In the middle ages, we’d get a sword through our heart. In other times past, we would be accused of mischief and witchcraft. We suffered the scorn of the Holy Bible! Hopefully, our 15% of the globe will find justice in the future, just as we found long ago in the past, before handedness even existed. We’ve had it bad, but from the bottom one can only go up, right? Or is it left?
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Wreth Fallot
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