Prejudice against left-handed people originated from historical cultural and religious associations.
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Retrieved academic literature and reference sources show that historical prejudice against left-handed individuals stems from longstanding superstitions, religious associations viewing left-handedness as malevolent or 'devil's work', and cultural symbolism linking the left side with impurity and negative qualities.
Bias against left-handed people
Bias against people who are left-handed includes handwriting, which is one of the biggest sources of disadvantage for left-handed people, other than for those required to work with certain machinery. About 90 percent of the world's population is right-handed, and many common articles are designed for efficient use by right-handed people, and may be inconvenient, painful, or even dangerous for left-handed people to use. These may include school desks, kitchen implements, and tools ranging from simple scissors to hazardous machinery such as power saws.
Beyond being inherently disadvantaged by a right-handed bias in the design of tools, left-handed people have been subjected to deliberate discrimination and discouragement. In certain societies, they may be considered unlucky or even malicious by the right-handed majority. Many languages still contain references to left-handedness to convey awkwardness, dishonesty, stupidity, or other undesirable qualities. In many societies, left-handed people have been historically forced as children to use their right hands for tasks which they would naturally perform with the left, such as eating or writing.
## Fa
# Historical aspects of left-handedness
Srpski arhiv za celokupno lekarstvo. Published: 2019-01-01. 8 citations.
## Authors
- Sanja Milenković (University of Belgrade): h-index 13; 605 citations
- Goran Belojević (University of Belgrade): h-index 25; 2,163 citations
- Katarina Paunović (University of Belgrade): h-index 20; 1,883 citations
- Dragana Davidović (University of Belgrade): h-index 8; 166 citations
## Topics
- Hemispheric Asymmetry in Neuroscience
- Comparative Animal Anatomy Studies
## Funding
- Ministarstvo Prosvete, Nauke i Tehnološkog Razvoja
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# philosophers-scientists
## Abstract
Lateralization is one of the central questions in neurology, neuropsychology, and other related scientific disciplines. There has been very little change in the proportion of left-handers since the Upper Paleolithic Age about 10,000 years ago and it is estimated to be around 10%. As the history of human thinking has developed from superstition to science, the explanation of left-handedness transformed from "devil's work" to neurological specificity. This paper presents this very interesting historical change by analyzing the data on left-handedness and the attitudes towards it
Right and Left in Greek Philosophy | The Journal of Hellenic Studies | Cambridge Core
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# Right and Left in Greek Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
G. E. R. Lloyd
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## Extract
The purpose of this article is to consider how the symbolic associations which right and left had for the ancient Greeks influenced various theories and explanations in Greek philosophy of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The fact that certain manifest natural oppositions (e.g. right and left, male and female, light and darkness, up and down) often acquire powerful symbolic associations, standing for religious categories such as pure and impure, blessed and accursed, is well attested by anthropologists for many present-day societies. Robert Hertz, in particular, has considered the significance of the widespread belief in the superiority
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