Left-Handed in a Right-Handed World, Challenges and Biases

I recently had lunch with a friend, and when our server began to write down our order, I noticed she was left-handed. Since I am also, it started an interesting conversation. Though much younger than I, we had similar experiences growing up. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, tried to change me over my mother's protests. My waitress' mother tried to change her over her grandmother's objections. We both struggled and had to adjust, learning how to write, contorting our hands to adjust to the right-handed world. Those writing surfaces attached to those small desks were on the right side, requiring significant "adjustment" for left handers. I grew up playing sports left-handed. In some ways this is an advantage, though in most cases, a major challenge.
 
As I turned to my lunch companion, I noticed an expression of surprise. He commented, "I never thought about this. Being right-handed, it never came up before." Our conversation continued as I discussed many of the challenges faced in my early years. I had a job on a large manufacturing site and on my first day, my manager asked me to take the golf cart over to building B and bring back the "right-handed monkey wrench." My contact at building B sent me to building D, and so on and so on. After visiting 4 different locations it dawned on me that something didn't seem correct. As a left-handed person and somewhat naive, it seemed only logical that such a tool existed. Only after I returned to my workspace did I learn that this was part of new hire "orientation!"
 
Many things are taken for granted. When signing your name on the register when entering a business, the binder rings are typically at the top or to the left, requiring me to contort my hand. Sitting at my local Starbucks one morning, I observed that the doors open on the right side. We live in a right-hand dominated world, and left-handed individuals are required to adapt and adjust to be effective.

In many cases left-handed people are not taken seriously, made to feel uncomfortable, and even discriminated against. On a much larger and more significant scale, consider members of our society that are made to "adapt and adjust" to exist or merely survive. Those that come here for the “America Dream,” escaping political or social pressures in their homelands. It is enough to have to adjust to a new country. So many are treated as outcasts, not necessarily given the opportunities promised. We are a diverse society, with different ethnic, generational, and gender differences. It is critical that we recognize our own biases as our “market” has dramatically changed. Those that are right-handed, or “privileged,” can make it quite challenging for those that are not. The impact and significance goes much further than the inconveniences we "lefties" have to cope with.