# Professions where dominant hand makes a difference

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 6, 2022, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764 "2022-06-06T17:46:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 111

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### Author: ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2022, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/111 "2022-06-09T03:52:09Z")

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> [@JaneDoe42](#):
>
> Left handed seamstresses probably do get hired and then fired very quickly because they cannot keep up the pace so I guess you are right there.

Surprisingly, [it actually appears to be the other way around](https://fashion-incubator.com/are-sewing-machines-designed-for-the-left-handed/). (At least with regard to which group is naturally superior at operating a standard-layout sewing machine. I don’t know of any evidence that the disadvantaged righties are actually failing to “keep up the pace” and consequently “getting fired” from sewing-machine-operator jobs.)

> [@](#):
>
> With industrial machines, bobbins nearly always load from the left, needles must be threaded from the left, foot changes only unscrew from the left, and lastly, the default pedal installation is left of the needle […] left handers should find industrial machines easier to use than most other handed technologies. […]
> 
> […] being more aware about handedness explains some problems I’ve had in training people to sew on industrials. […]
> 
> With industrial machines, dexterity of the left hand is very important because it should lead in feeding the materials and lining pieces together.

Why does the standard sewing-machine design actually favor left-handers over right-handers in the modern world, contrary to what we might assume? [Apparently because:](https://www.andreaschewedesign.com/blog/left-handed-sewing-machines)

> [@](#):
>
> Since the sewing machine was invented before motors could easily be put into machine for the home, they were either powered with a foot treadle or a hand crank. […]
> 
> […] machine designers thought it would be better to have the right hand, since it is dominant for most people and hence the stronger one, be the hand that operated the crank. This meant that everything else is done with the left hand and still is to this day.

That second cite has an embedded video by a sewing machine manufacturer that is making a reverse-layout sewing machine to be easier for right-handers to operate, and watching it is blowing my (right-handed) mind. Yes, all the dexterity functions I have to perform with my sewing machine(s) are on the left side, and I do have to kind of cross my right hand over to the left side to achieve them, and it is a bit awkward and it would be more convenient to have all those functions on the right side instead!

All because so many early sewing machines were hand-crank-operated, and the manufacturers decided that the right-handed majority needed to be able to use the superior strength of their dominant hand more than its superior dexterity…

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