
Shedding the Stigma of Being Left Handed
The fear of leftness has its roots in the Bible as Jesus reckoned that on Judgment Day the blessed would sit to the right of God; the damned to the left.
Until relatively recently, left-handedness was seen as an illness that needed curing.
In his 1937 handbook The Backward Child, the British child psychologist Sir Cyril Burt depicted left-handers as fumblers and bunglers who “squint” and “stammer” and “flounder about like seals out of water”.
A decade later, Abram Blau, head of child psychiatry at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, condemned left-handedness as “an expression of infantile negativism” linked to rebellious stubbornness, secretive superstition, obsessive cleanliness and other unpleasant traits. It was all due, it was believed, to an unloving “refrigerator mother”.
Even as late as the 1990s, some schools in Ireland were still forcing southpawed children to write with their right hands.
Nowadays, we know that nine out of 10 people are right-handed and that left-handedness is likely to be genetic.
- SHOP NOW
- READ ABOUT LEFT HANDED CELEBRITIES
- OUR TOP LIST OF FAMOUS LEFT HANDED PEOPLE
- WHICH U.S PRESIDENTS WERE LEFT HANDED
- CHECK OUT OUR LIST OF LEFT HANDED CARTOON CHARACTERS
- CHECK OUT OUR GROWING LIST OF LEFT HANDED POETS
- READ OUR BLOG
- LEARN ABOUT LEFT HANDED DISCRIMINATION
- LEFT HANDED SCHOLARSHIPS
Related Left Handed Blogs we think you'd like
-
How Does Being Left Handed Affect Your Body Asymmetry
According to DW, handedness is not the only asymmetry of our bodies. Whether hugging, kissing or listening, we usuall...
-
Left Handed CEOs Share Career Advice
Per the Chicago Tribune, any google search about lefties and you’ll be confronted with lots of studies. They’re more ...
-
There Are No Left Handed People in China??? We're Calling BS
There are no left-handers or less than 1% in China says surveys conducted since the 1980s. But, how is that? World A...
-
Left Handers Are Fighting For Their Rights in China
It's pretty well know that Asians have been forcing their left handed children to be right handed for quite some time...