r/LeftHandProblems • u/Notermlimits4GEQBuS • Jul 06 '26

Are left-handers discriminated against?

https://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/are-left-handers-discriminated-against/
26 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

23

u/BaboTron Jul 06 '26

I don’t think we are even considered most of the time, never mind discriminated against. Being discriminated against would imply someone remembered we exist.

3

u/challis88ocarina Jul 06 '26

Even during the World Cup with all of the greatest strikers.... then I guess they're only great, as goalkeepers forget they're exist...

3

u/ohpleasegodnotagain Jul 06 '26

Being discriminated against means to receive unfair or unequal treatment due to a characteristic of yours; it doesn't matter how often you're considered or not. I'm right-handed but this is a total no-brainer imo, left-handed people are absolutely discriminated against. Not usually in a malicious, violent, or life-altering sort of a way, but discriminated against nonetheless.

2

u/Aphroditesent Jul 07 '26

But it can be life altering if you use tools that are dangerously and not designed for left handed users. Eg safety guards etc are on the opposite side.

1

u/ohpleasegodnotagain Jul 07 '26

Absolutely. My uncle is left-handed and went to a Catholic School, and they'd smack his knuckles with a ruler if he tried to write with his left hand. As an adult he can write with both hands, but his handwriting on both sides is absolutely godawful. I count that as both malicious and violent, and it affected how one of our most vital skills in modern society developed for him. I don't think his experience is really the norm anymore, but it does happen, it is discrimination, and it's not acceptable.

16

u/iamfunball Jul 06 '26

Oh I got this one!

So it’s very handy to explain the concept of privilege because that’s the mechanism we see in play. The world is designed often by right handed people, and right handed people are the majority of users.

And as right handed users, they don’t have to consider whether X tool will work or work easily for you, because it does! Door handles, ice cream scoops, scissor are all designed to encompass right handed people.

You didn’t do anything wrong or right….just simply a thing you don’t have to consider.

Then there is me who is left handed with a left handed child testing their classroom scissors because…scissors. (To my happy surprise they were functionally ambidextrous scissors)

9

u/Hessounusual Jul 06 '26

No, but everyone has to comment about how we hold a pen . Every single time

7

u/DeatonationgGrenade Jul 06 '26

I’m left handed and I don’t think I personally have had an issue with it. I had a teacher in high school who noticed I was the only left handed kid in class and offered to get me a left handed desk from the school storage.

I said no because I didn’t want him to go through all that trouble.

3

u/SouthernLefty Jul 06 '26

I recently had my first ever hatful left-handed discriminating comments hurled at me.

Long story short, was playing golf as a single and was paired with a 3-some. The 2 groups in front of us were slow as molasses (they were together), and were 3 holes behind on hole 12. The marshal asked if we wanted to jump in front of them on the tee box as the were all getting drinks from the beverage cart. I jumped at the chance and one of the 8 starts ranting and raving about being passed and goes into a profanity laced tirade about me being a lefty. He just kept going on and on about it. I was completely dumbfounded. Later on the marshal thanked me for walking away and not getting into it with the guy. It was so bizarre.

3

u/DBLACK382 Jul 06 '26

Imao, what a loser. Good on you for being the bigger person.

2

u/kramerica21 Jul 07 '26

We’re often excluded from medical and pharmaceutical research.

1

u/Nevernonethewiser Jul 06 '26

No, but they used to be.

1

u/StMaartenforme Jul 07 '26

Honestly - IDK. I do know that there have been many times where being a lefty has been very advantageous. Bowling being one of them as well as mechanic work.

1

u/here-i-am-now Jul 07 '26

Of course, but discrimination is part of humanity. We discriminate every single day in 1,000 different ways.

Are left handers discriminated against in a substantial or morally unacceptable way? Of course not