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F pom tliG Edit OP It’s not easy being a lefty. Not only is our society built primarily to equip right-handed people, naturally left-handed folks face a lifetime of being dis couraged from utilizing their left-handedness (except southpaw baseball players, who are valued highly indeed). As a result, left-handed people often develop a greater balance between their hands, while right handers are totally incompetent with their left. The situation is analogous to gender relations: it is true there are some essential, biological differences between the hand co ordination of each person, but there is also an immense amount of socialization that takes place to prevent an individual from developing his or her second hand. We refer to our “weaker hand” like people think of the “weaker sex,” and there are a slew of activities (think bathroom cosmetics, like brushing your teeth and hair or applying make-up) that we can only do with one hand, much in the same way we restrict many activities to particular gender roles. Most college students frequently find themselves in a rush trying to get ready for class in the morning. If a student can perform everyday tasks with either hand, he or she may be able to multitask. Being able to do things with either hand makes you a more complete and versatile person. Similarly, if we recognize there are many activities deemed “women’s work” or “men’s work” that could actually be performed by anyone, we would be a more complete society. You may think it impossible to brush your teeth with your left hand, or think you “ought” to brush them with your right simply because it seems “natural,” but just think how easy it is to master teeth-brushing, and how quickly you could replicate your right-handed prowess with your “weaker hand” with everyday practice. Plato said that if we don’t educate both men and women, we waste half the resources of society. Haven’t you sat in a class at UNC learning about famous men in history and wondered how many great composers, philosophers, scientists and writers our world missed out on by virtue of excluding women? For the first time, a person of color and a woman are in contention for the White House (see page 11). Many US. citizens may finally be reconsidering the notion that President is a man’s job. But it takes a viable woman candidate just to force people to begin recognizing the years and years of socialization which have pounded ideas into our heads so intensely they almost seem “natural.” We have the power to reject mainstream ideas of what women and men, queer and straight people, white folks and people of color ought to do and who they ought to be, and to free everyone by giving all the true opportunity to pursue their individual goals. Only then can we become a complete — you might say, ambidextrous - society. In unity, Daniel Becton dbec@ email, unc. edu M ission LAMBDA IS UNC-Chapel Hill’s Lesbian-, Gay-, Bisexual-, Transgender-, Intersex- and Queer-affirming pubucation, PROVIDING A PROGRESSIVE OUTLET FOR NEWS, ANALYSIS, OPINION AND DIALOGUE. As SUCH, WE ARE INHERENTLY COMMITTED TO A FEMINIST, ANTI-RACIST AND HISTORICALLY CONSCIOUS PERSPECTIVE IN PURSUIT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR ALL PEOPLE. lambdX Box 39 Carolina Union, CB# 5210 Chapel Hill, NC 27514 glbtsa@unc.edu Office: FPG Student Union 3512D (919) 962-3191 • www.unc.edu/glbtsa/lambda T earn Daniel Becton Editor in Chief Robert Wells Managng Editor Eric Velarde Photo Editor Lindsay Naylor Graphics Teddy Kirby Business Editor David Peterson Copy Editor Donna Bickford Kimberly Fisher Kosta Harlan Mary Beth Kaneklides Scott Kaplan Antoine Reid Contributors LAMBDA is a project of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender - Straight Alliance This publication is funded at least in part by student fees, which were appropriated and dispensed by the Student Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill LAMBDA is printed in Durham, N.C., by Triangle Web Printing.
Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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March 1, 2008, edition 1
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