Navigating a predominantly right-handed world is challenging for left-handed individuals. Dismissed for constituting only 10% of the world population, it feels like the entire world and people are up in arms and conspiring against you. On International Lefthanders Day, let’s take a look at the various challenges they face.

Social stigmas

Subjected to intrusive questions like how they wash or which hand they eat with almost every other day, lefties put on a facade to laugh it off with their right-handed friends. The judgments are ingrained and played off as a joke, unaware of how the joke affects their leftie friends, despite their composure. The stigmas did not develop in isolation, instead, they can be traced back to ancient scriptures. Indian puja rituals frown upon the usage of the left hand for performing the ritual as it’s considered ‘inauspicious.’

Ink smudges

Even a rudimentary task like writing is troublesome for the lefties. Righties, as they write across the page, do not have their hand resting on the written content. However, lefties drag their hand across the page over the written content. It smudges the ink on the page and looks untidy or leaves an ink imprint on the side of their hand. Pens like gel pens and fountain pens, which tend to dry slowly are especially difficult to work with. To avoid this problem, lefties improvise and hold the pen at odd angles or position their wrists awkwardly to properly write. This shows how even the most trivial, everyday tasks are subliminally geared towards the right-handed population.

Binders

Binders have spiral rings on the left side, convenient for righties to flip the page easily. But for lefties, the binders can be a real trial of patience.When a leftie writes, their hand is automatically pressed on the spiral bounds. It’s like an itch they can’t scratch. The hard surface leaves a red imprint on the side of their hand, and they are left adjusting time and again to avoid it from sticking to their hand.

Equipments

Most of the kitchen tools like peelers are designed for the right-handed. Measuring cups have the markings on the right side, making it a challenge to read those measurements. Similarly holding scissors is cumbersome, but lefties sadly go to lengths to adapt.

Desk position

The tablet arm chair is a headache for lefties. This type of chair has a built-in table surface attached to it, but most of the time it’s on the right side. While right-handed individuals can naturally place their arm on the attached table and write, lefties need to twist their body to get their writing hand on the right-sided table, otherwise, their left hand is left hanging in the air with no support. The prolonged contouring and twisting of the body impacts the pace and tidiness of the work, making it uncomfortable and fatiguing to write in that awkward position. It feels like an awful ripoff of the Twister game.

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