"Imagine, for a moment, that we could tell at birth (or even before) whether a child was left-handed or right-handed. By convention, the parents of left-handed babies dress them in pink clothes, wrap them in pink blankets and decorate their rooms with pink hues. The left-handed baby's bottle, bibs and dummies - and later, cups, plates, utensils, lunch box and backpack - are often pink or purple with motifs such as butterflies, flowers and fairies. Parents tend to let the hair of left-handers grow long, and while it is still short in babyhood a barrette or bow (often pink) serves as a stand-in. Right-handed babies, by contrast, are never dressed in pink, nor do they have pink accessories or toys. Although blue is a popular colour for right-handed babies, as they get older any colour, excluding pink or purple, is acceptable. Clothing and other items for right-handed and children commonly portray vehicles, sporting equipment and space rockets; never butterflies, flowers or fairies. The hair of right-handers is usually kept short and is never prettified with accessories.
Nor do parents just segregate left- and right-handers symbolically, with colour and motif, in our imaginary world. They also distinguish between them verbally. 'Come on, left-handers!' cries out the mother of the two left-handed children in the park. 'Time to go home.' Or they might say, 'Well, go and ask that right-hander if you can have a turn on the swing now.' At playgroup, children overhear comments like, 'Left-handers love drawing, don't they?', and 'Are you hoping for a right-hander this time?' to a pregnant mother. At preschool, the teacher greets them with a cheery, 'Good morning, left-handers and right-handers.' In the supermarket, a father says proudly in response to a polite enquiry, 'I've got three children altogether: one left-hander and two right-handers.'
And finally, although left-handers and right-handers happily live together in homes and communities, children can't help but notice that elsewhere they are often physically segregated. The people who care for them - primary caregivers, child care workers and kindergarten teachers, for example - are almost all left-handed, while building sites and garbage trucks are peopled by right-handers. Public toilets, sports teams, many adult friendships and even some schools, are segregated by handedness..."
Extract from Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine
