Left-handers thwarted

The development of societies as a whole has long been based on the characteristics and needs of right-handed individuals, forcing left-handed people, who are less numerous, to adapt to this organization to better blend into the environment. In France, for example, left-handed people represent about 15% of the population.

At birth, one of the brain’s two hemispheres, the left or the right, will take precedence over the other and determine whether the person will be left or right-handed. The most noticeable difference between a left-handed and a right-handed individual is in writing, as the direction in which a text is written is from left to right, at least in Western culture.

A left-handed person will have more difficulty following this direction than a right-handed person who can pull his pen from left to right while the left-handed person will have to push it to write. This difference often leads to more legible and uncluttered writing for right-handed people than for left-handed people.

This is one of the reasons why many left-handers have forced themselves to write with their right hand, thus becoming annoyed left-handers. This adaptation, which was often imposed at an early age for some, allows left-handed people to avoid having to contort their wrists to form the letters inwards by pushing the pen to the right and will enable them to be faster at writing.

It is possible to identify a left-handed person at the beginning of the writing cycle because the brain mechanics favor the natural direction of writing, which for the left-handed person is from right to left. This natural tendency applied to the order defined for the Western report, from left to right, would thus lead a left-handed person to write backwards, starting with the last letter of the word rather than the first. In recent years, left-handedness has been studied more and more, and feedback shows that this practice can have consequences on personal development and leave sequels such as strabismus and stuttering.

On the other hand, the qualities developed to adapt to a right-handed environment can forge a solid and determined character, sound in the choices and decisions the left-handed person will have to make throughout his or her life.

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David Smadja

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Left-handers thwarted

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At birth, one of the brain's two hemispheres, the left or the right, will take precedence over the other and determine whether the person will be left or right-handed. The most noticeable difference between a left-handed and a right-handed individual is in writing, as the direction in which a text is written is from left to right, at least in Western culture.