The Right Hand's Burden

The first subject I ever failed in school was not economics. It wasn’t calculus. It wasn’t biology, and, by some miracle, it wasn’t even social dance. It didn’t happen in college. It didn’t happen in high school. It wasn’t in middle school, or even elementary school. At five years old, they told me I was a failure, and it has haunted me ever since.

In kindergarten, I failed cutting.

The report card is still at my parents’ house somewhere. Though I would never fail a class again, I’ve already been kicked out of Eden, so to speak—all because I couldn’t use scissors. And I haven’t gotten any better. Cutting along a straight line, a simple task for 90% of the population, is a challenge for me, and you can forget about cutting a circle. And I’ve been mocked, more than once, in my short life for my inability to perform simple tasks such as this.

Why? Because I am a victim of oppression.

I represent a minority. We make up about 10% of the world, we’ve been a consistent victim of persecution since society began, and there are few, if any, signs of progress. While legal battles are constantly waged over other critical equal rights movements (try googling “Potty Parity”), my people are so oppressed that, according to the LA Times, my expected life span is six to nine years shorter than yours. We’ve been abused. Ignored. Abandoned. And no one is lifting a finger.

Who are we? Homosexuals? African Americans? Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriends?

Nope. We’re lefties.

Southpaws. The ones you exile to the end of the dinner table. The ones lined up on the far edge of the classroom—statistically speaking, one of the least effective spots for learning. Chances are, if you’re not one of us, you’ve never thought about our plight. If you, however, are a lefty, it’s time you joined with us and fought for your long-deserved freedom.

“Hang on now,” some of you are thinking. “There are no laws against lefties. Left-handed people are allowed to do everything the rest of us can.” If that is the case, you merely confirm Daniel Wiggins’s philosophy that ignorance is the father of tyranny. Anti-left-handed prejudice is so engrained in our culture, few even know it exists.

This bias has had millennia to settle in as the status quo. The Latin word for right is “dextera,” an ancestor of the word “dexterity,” meaning “agile.” The term “ambidextrous” actually means “right handed on both sides.” The Latin word for left? “Sinister.” I don’t think I have to tell you what that means in English.

“Yeah, but that’s Latin,” you might be saying. “Nobody speaks Latin. We’re not discriminatory in English.” Wanna bet?

Grab a thesaurus. Look up “left-handed.” What words do you find there? If you went to thesaurus.com, like I did, because no one has an actual thesaurus anymore, you’ll find the following entry:

What kinds of words do you notice? And it gets better! Scroll down the page a bit further, and this is what you’ll find:

            That’s the equivalent of a respected dictionary saying:

wom·an [woom-uhn] noun, plural wom·en [wim-in]

1.  the female human being (distinguished from man).

2. an adult female person.

3. belongs in the kitchen.

            You wouldn’t tolerate that. So why are we so eager to turn a blind eye toward inherent lexical prejudice toward left-handed people?

            The oppression doesn’t end with vocabulary. I’ve already mentioned the difficulties of right-handed scissors, which are designed so that the sharpened edge is clearly visible to right handed users, but blocked to lefties. It’s like trying to cut blindfolded. What about can openers? They force you to use your right hand, unless you get very creative. Ever tried writing in a three-ring binder or a spiral notebook left-handed? No matter how you position your hand, the rings and spirals always get in the way. Speaking of writing, have you ever looked at a lefty’s hand after he finished a hand-written essay? Or seen a whiteboard after a southpaw has used it? Try using a right-handed desk with your left hand. You can’t do it without giving yourself scoliosis. And schools always shove the left-handed desks against the left wall, presumably, because they still think that “separate but equal” is a good idea. Unfortunately, this gives the lefty no place to put his own left elbow while writing, rendering the “accommodation” worthless.

            If you’re a lefty with two right-handed parents, woe betide you. My parents couldn’t teach me how to tie my shoes. They thought there was something wrong with me because I simply couldn’t get my hands to naturally move the way they showed me to. I had to learn myself. I invented a new knot (which took twenty minutes to untie every day, but that’s beside the point). My parents couldn’t teach me how to play sports. Or the guitar. Or do a number of other things that right-handed people learn easily. Lefties either have to grudgingly use their less-precise, non-dominant hand or learn on their own.

            “Okay,” you’re admitting. “That may make life inconvenient, but you’re not really oppressed or in danger.” Are you sure about that? Then play along with me for a second. If you have access to a chainsaw, go get it. If not, imagine one. How do you hold it? What hand goes where? How do you start it? (If you have a chainsaw, DO NOT start it within reading distance of your computer.) Now, imagine trying to start it with your left hand. As you pull the starter cord, just where might your arm go?

            If I’ve lost you, there’s a fairly high chance that, as you pull the cord, your left elbow bends directly toward the newly spinning chain. And if that’s not a vomit-inducing thought, stop watching the Saw movies. Similar accidents can happen with firearms. And stick shifts. And heavy machinery. And pretty much anything with a lot of metal and a button, lever, or switch that makes things smash, cut, or launch. Our society has built itself upon a right-handed philosophy, one that can make the world very dangerous for us lefties. (If you’d like more information on the dangers of being left handed, try studying the research of Stanley Coren.)

We southpaws have a lot to contribute. For example, think of the last eight U.S. presidents (Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon). Which three own the lowest approval ratings? Nixon, Carter, and W. All three were highly unpopular, whether for Watergate, Stagflation, or the War on Terror. You know what else they have in common? All three are right-handed. The other five are either left-handed or ambidextrous. Presidential success rate has a higher correlation with handedness than it does with political party. Just think about it.

It’s time for the oppression to end. It’s time for the southpaws to come together and demand change. We want left-handed scissors at the same price as standard models. We want left-handed can openers, left-handed notebooks, and left-handed desks in the middle of classrooms. We want left-handed power tools and safe working conditions for left-handed workers. In other words, we want a left-handed revolution, and we warn the right-handers to stay out of our way.

Unless it involves cutting. Then we’ll probably need your help.

To read more of Riley's work, click here.