In “Borderland Politics and Erotics: Gender and Sexuality in Himalayan Mountaineering,” Sherry Ortner presents an interesting model for exploring the relationships that develop along the cultural frontiers of human interaction, taking into account socioeconomic class, gender, tradition, and individual agency, as well as alternate constructions of gender within different cultures.

She doesn’t use the term, herself, but one of the ideas she addresses is human “agency,” by which we mean the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to take action in the world in order to advance their own interests, redefine the situation they find themselves in, or correct an injustice. In a four to five page paper (meaning that your text makes it onto the fifth page) please compare and contrast several specific examples of human agency that she documents in her article. What culturally determined constraints do Sherpa women face and how is their situation different from that of Western women who travel to Nepal? How do Western ideas about women’s gender roles and individual agency differ from the Sherpas’ and how are they similar? What analytic terms or concepts does Ortner use to present her evidence and make her argument? Your essay should be grounded in specific examples mentioned in the article that help to reveal the similarities and differences in women’s lives on both sides of the equation.