Ambidextrous

Wandering aournd in my head, as I often do, I found a memory of a friend of mine complaining to me about how nothing is made for "lefties". Being a leftie in a right-handed world cannot possibly be the most convenient thing. Our right-handed individual desks at school are a good example. Lefties cannot rest their writing hand on an armrest as they write, unlike righties.

How does "handedness" come about? (I think it has to do with the dominance of the right or left hemisphere of the brain but I have no research to back this up.) Are you stuck with a dominant hand from birth? Or can you change it? Several of my leftie friends have told me that lefties are more likely to be ambidextrous than righties. If that it true, then why? I think it is because our society is oriented to right'handed people, from scissors to how we learn to hold a basketball for a freethrow shoot (right-hand : push and left-hand : guiding support). Many lefties just learn the rightie way of doing things.

So, being ambidextrous is useful for lefties, but what about for righties, like me? If losing a hand were a frequent occurrence, I would suggest that everyone teach themselves to be ambidextrous. Since that is not the case, righties really have no need for this skill. (But I am going to try anyway.)

What do you think of our right-dominant society? Should a greater effort be made to accomodate lefties?