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Handedness has remained an enigma for a long time. One emerging theory is that it is genetically inherited, which means one gets the trait from one's parents. Prof. Chris McManus at London University argues that the origins of handedness have something to do with our genes.
Unlike other animals, he notes that only humans got handedness through evolution, just one in 10 is left handed for a complicated evolutionary reason.
These days, discrimination against left-handed people is less common compared with the past but we still find it in our culture. First of all, it is found in semantics. For example, in Korean the root word for left carries negative meanings _ something incorrect and odd _ while that for right has positive meanings _ something correct and normal.
Also, in other languages, left has meant fool, the insane, homosexuals and so on.
In the past, many tried with great efforts to correct the left-handed into becoming right-handed. People were forced not to be left-handed and it was sometimes banned as being illegal.
The course of the correction caused stress, lowered self-confidence and in some cases led to stammering. On the contrary, an increasing number of parents encourage their children to use both hands these days thereby forcing the correction in a different way. But attempts to correct left-handed people have decreased.
Currently, due to the efforts for better understanding left-handed people, they are treated better but still face many inconveniences every day. Chopsticks, door handles, camera shutters, knives, scissors, armrests in public spaces such as movie theaters, flushing handles, OMR cards are designed, produced and placed for the right-handed.
Perhaps such situations have been inevitable so far as the world is dominated by the right handed but we need to think about the fact that the left-handed persons suffer inconveniences every day.
The efforts are exerted continuously to remove the inconveniences. Many products that are fitted for left-handed people are available. Included among the products are scissors and a computer mouse.
Moreover, August 13 is designated as International Left-Handed Day to improve their human rights and promote general understanding of the left-handed. Many campaigns and events are planned every year for these purposes. In the cyber world, a hashtag campaign has been launched to support the day, attracting participation from all over the world.
It is clear that we all have to make efforts to enhance our understanding and support so that left-handed people's inconveniences are dealt with and discriminations against them are not tolerated any more.
Lee Seo-young is a third year student at Daewon Foreign Language High School.
