I consider myself a lefty in more ways than one. I have been writing with my left hand since first grade. I kick with my left foot when playing soccer. I throw with my left hand and bat on the left side of the plate when playing baseball. I have been to the Lefty’s Store in San Francisco, where they sell exclusively left-handed goods, from scissors to spiral notebooks. I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is sometimes to live in a right-handed world. Some may say that sometimes struggling to use scissors, doors, desks and other mundane objects is only a minor inconvenience. I disagree. I think the world needs to be built more ambidextrously. Sadly, my laments often fall on deaf ears, as left-handed people only make up 10-12% of the population. Why is this?
Paleoarcheology shows us, through preserved human tools and remains, that the rate of left-handedness has remained relatively steady throughout all of human history. A variety of sociocultural, environmental and genetic factors influence whether someone will become left-handed. A common hypothesis among some evolutionary scientists is that left-handedness has both some evolutionary benefits and drawbacks, keeping its frequency in the population relatively stable. Benefits include potentially being better at sports or hunting because left-handed brains work slightly differently. Drawbacks include social stigma and being less suited to use right-handed tools. Importantly, in chimpanzees, who also use sticks like tools and tend to have dominant hands, the distribution of right-handers versus left-handers is right now the middle, with 50% of each. This fact raises the possibility that social preference for right-handers over time has reduced the number of left-handed individuals in the gene pool. This kind of stigma is made plain in even the words for left and right. The word “left” comes from Anglo-Saxon word “lyft,” meaning weak. The Latin word for left is “sinister,” a word associated with trickery and evil, and the opposite of sinister is “dexter,” a word associated with skill and righteousness.
Furthermore, many cultures around the world still have a pronounced stigma towards the left-handed. China claims that only 1% of its population is left-handed, a stark difference from the global average of 10-12%. One explanation is that many written Chinese characters require using the right hand. Some parts of the Muslim world and Africa consider the left hand as dirty and disrespectful to offer to others. Smithsonian Magazine claims as many as two-thirds of left-handed people globally face discrimination. In fact, in the United States, left-handedness seemed to occur below 4% of the time in 1900, less than half of what it is today. When adults stopped punishing or discouraging school children from writing with their left hand, the proportion of left-handed people increased. In terms of differences between the left and right-handed, one study found that higher state levels of left-handedness in the U.S. led to a more liberal state population. Left-handedness very well may demonstrate differences in the ways some people think and act. Regardless of actual differences, many people have strong beliefs and superstitions about using the left or the right hand that are baked into the very language we use to describe them. A decisive answer on what causes left-handedness and why left-handed people might behave differently would be nice. But no such answer exists. Left-handedness and its frequency in the human population is a complicated phenomenon, influenced by our genetics, our upbringing, our environment and a little bit of pure chance. My best friend in first grade was also left-handed, but only because he broke his right arm when we were first learning to write. One thing we do know is left-handedness probably isn’t causing significant differences in how someone’s brain works or how they act. Rather, it’s most likely an underlying symptom of some more nebulous difference.
Regardless of causes and effects, left-handedness is a good example of how people react when they are confronted with differences and what we can learn from that reaction. Left-handed people aren’t inherently weaker or more evil, though that would be really interesting if it was true. Rather, some people are just more comfortable using their left hand or left foot for some tasks. Given it is such a trivial difference, it should be easy to provide infrastructural support for left-handed people. Of course, in a world of primarily right-handed people, the world will always be built for the super-majority. Doors will likely, and probably should, open to the right. But maybe we don’t need doors that open in any particular direction. Maybe we should have a pair of left-handed scissors in every elementary school classroom. A few desks in every classroom at Fordham University should be built for the left-handed. If we can’t make the smallest effort to accommodate a minor difference, how will we ever be able to confront larger structural differences that affect other groups of people in significantly more detrimental ways?
Stuart Cremer, FCRH ’26, is an environmental studies and English major from Mountain View, Calif.
