An analysis of recent global case examples demonstrates that, while there are many countries that have transformed their legal system and adopted international standards that give women equal rights within inheritance, the book remains open on whether these laws are being fully implemented. This thesis documents the international and historical sea change of Kosovo's inheritance law with respect to the legal status of women. The thesis also gives treatment to other countries in comparison that have raised significant questions about the capability of these legal changes alone to generate actual implementation, given the continuing stronghold of traditional customary law.

This research project analyzes women’s dynamic pathways to pregnancy prevention and termination in Arizona. Two levels of analysis guide the study: The first is a cultural analysis of the socio-legal conditions that shape the channels to birth control and abortion. During this historical moment, I analyze the fight over increasing (and calls for more) legal constraints against contraception and abortion, coupled with decreasing individual access to reproductive health care information and services. This dissertation includes an examination of the struggle over reproductive health on the ground and in the legal arena, and real pushbacks against these constraints as well. The second is an analysis of how women seek out contraception or abortion within the US socio-legal landscape. The study qualitatively examines narratives from 33 women in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area, a region emblematic of the political contest over the legal regulation of women’s reproductive health currently unfolding nationally. Ultimately, the state is implicated in the various resources and barriers—people, places, processes and policies—that inform women’s pregnancy prevention. These experiences can illuminate the ways that reproductive health care is shaped by intersecting and sometimes competing ideologies, and how women encounter them in their daily lives. The study theorizes the embodiment of women’s local encounters with the state within a cultural context of contested law and policy reform.

Emerging in the late 1960s, the Free Clinic Movement represented an attempt to provide equitable, accessible, and free health care to all. Originally aimed at helping drug addicts, hippies, and runaways, free clinics were community-led organizations that ran solely on donations and volunteers, and were places where “free” meant more than just monetarily free - it meant free from judgment, moralizing, or bureaucratic red tape. This dissertation is an institutional history of the Los Angeles Free Clinic (LAFC), which, as a case study, serves to illustrate the challenges and cooperation inherent in the broader Free Clinic Movement. My project begins by investigating the links between the Free Clinic Movement and aspects of Progressive era reform, health care policy, and stigmatization of disease. By the 1960s, the community health centers formed under Lyndon Johnson, along with the growth of the New Left and Counterculture, set the stage for the emergence of the free clinics. In many ways, the LAFC was an anti-Establishment establishment, walking a fine line between appealing to members of the Counterculture, and forming a legitimate and structurally sound organization. The central question of this project is: how did the LAFC develop and then grow from a small anti-Establishment health care center to a respected part of the health care safety net system of Los Angeles County? Between 1967 and 1975, the LAFC evolved, developing strong ties to the Los Angeles County Department of Health, local politicians, and even the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). By 1975, as the LAFC moved into a new and larger building, it had become an accepted part of the community.

This dissertation examines how direct selling organizations compel women to believe that direct selling is, among other things, centered on the needs of women. Drawing upon feminist interdisciplinary methodologies, this dissertation brings together qualitative, archival, and ethnographic materials to analyze direct selling through a technologies of gender framework. I argue that multi-level marketing direct selling companies (like Avon, Tupperware, Mary Kay, etc.) are able to turn belief into profits because they strategically tap into gender ideologies. I show that discursive technologies of gender coalesce with race and class discourses and are put to work by direct selling companies to construct a specific type of direct seller. This dissertation attempts to unpack the complex technologies of gender that direct selling women engage with while constructing their identities as workers and women. I argue that the companies in this study deliberately tap into women's anxieties and desires to blend their perceived gender roles with their need for income. I find that direct selling companies are exceptional at branding their businesses as uniquely suited for women and that this branding hinges upon the construction of a direct sales imaginary. I argue that the direct sales imaginary taps into powerful discourses of race, class, and gender to market the American dream to women who are seeking out a space that is empowering and inclusive. Because the direct selling industry tends to see an increase in profits and recruitment during economic recessions, it is likely that the current economic situation has channeled even more women toward direct sales as a fallback for uncertain economic futures. While some women may be inclined to view direct sales as an attractive employment alternative it is not a realistic means of supporting families during difficult economic times and this study might help some women make more informed decisions. Furthermore, this study brings to light how gender might be used to organize structural relationships between markets, people, and businesses.