Karen’s Opinion

Have you ever thought about how your handshake sends a message? I was watching Arsenio Hall and he introduced a video about handshakes that was interesting. I learned the importance of a proper handshake. The first description of handshaking can be found in Egyptian records which date to 2800 B.C. Since then, the handshake has been overwhelmingly consistent and constant. We know that the handshake during Roman and Medieval times included an arm clasp, which was a method for inspecting each other’s arms for hidden weapons. Since it is a thousands-of-years-old practice that had survival consequences, it has a huge subconscious presence. In other words, as much as we would like to trivialize the meaning of a handshake, it just won’t cooperate.

Since men have historically been the fighters and weapon carriers, the handshake has been primarily a man-thing. That started to change as women gained more power and equality and became as untrustworthy as weapon-bearing men had been in the past. Excerpt from Sterling Manners, Dr. Sterling

In traditional social etiquette, when two people meet, the person with the higher rank gets to choose whether or not to shake hands. Judith Martin, in Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, writes that “the higher-ranking person-socially this means women before men, except in the case of presidents, kings, or popes, and the greater age and more exalted positions before the younger and less significant-either sticks out a hand or doesn’t.” The lower-ranking person shouldn’t be the one to initiate the handshake. But if that should happen, Miss Manners says to go ahead and shake anyway. “The worst error is to pass by a hand that has been extended, however erroneously.”