. from the right to vote to the right to play ball, tonight we examine the fight for women's equality in politics, in paycheck and on the playing field and we talk to california's pioneering politician, the state's first female senator diane feinstein, all straight ahead on "a second look." >> hello everyone, i'm frank somerville and this month marks the 90th anniversary, in august

of 1920. that it became law, guaranteeing women the right to vote. a handful of states had performed women to vote before that with colorado being the earliest in 1896 and california passed a women's suffrage referendum in 1911, but not until 1920 that a woman's right to vote find protection in the constitution. in the decades leading to the amendment, suppers waged a nationwide campaign to turn the tide of opposition. >> the 1910's were filled with determined ladies and the most determined were the crusading and never say die suffrageetts, their moto, vote for women. former president teddy roosevelt, no small admirer of courage and spirit was a staunch friend, who often spurred them on from the porch of his home in oyster bay.

the insufferable suffragettes capped their exploits by picketing the white house itself. a riot developed and soon the paddy wagon arrived to pack the picketers off to prison. to their burden of ridicule was added time in jail. it only spurred they will on. upon release they proudly donned their prison garb and toured the country, their banner claim organization resistance to tyranny is loyalty to god." in the end, they may have benefited significantly from an event over which they had no control, world war i. it was the role that women played, filling in for men during the war that led president woodrow wilson to change his position, to go from opposing the women's right to vote to supporting it. >> women letter carriers replaced men off to war. the government had taken ovoff the rail and now the ladies did, filling jobs from engineer

to yard laborer and when she wasn't working in office, factory or farm, they knit socks for soldiers and wrote letters to men overseas and cut down on meats, wheat, fat and sugar, because the slogan told her food will win the war. even the precarious position had lady practitioners. it won her the vote. >> reporter: in 1995 america celebrated the 75th anniversary of the 19th amendment and here is dianne dwyer's report of the time. >> reporter: in the capitol, men and women marched through the streets and took the same route suffragettes used in the early 1900's. the league of women voters organized the march to commemorate the anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave

women the right to vote. across the country, in wyoming, president and mrs. clinton attended a 75th anne anniversary party. >> suffer getskneww suffrageetts knew it would be opening to government and women could stand behind issues to make their families stronger and their children's lives better. when you look better, it seems remarkable that all of this has happened in the last 75 years. >> reporter: police clinton call op women in america to exercise their right to vote. it wasn't an easy fight either, many women were arrested during the protests 75 gears ago and even after the 19th amendment was passed, when women actually showed up to vote in 1920, men surrounded several polling places, jeering and criticizing

the women for leaving baby carriages unattended on the sidewalks. >> and as people elsewhere gathered to celebrate the 75th anniversary in 1995, san francisco held its own commemoration. ktvu's jay vargas. >> they came to celebrate the anniversary of women's suffrage ♪ you knew all the women who labored and died ♪ >> reporter: they saw reenactment of the beginning of 1915 cross-country drive by suffrage fields who was taking the messe to congress. >> i shall be the first enfranchised women speaking for the field of all women in the united states of america. [ applause ] >> reporter: while it might seem unimaginable to us today

that women won't have the right to vote or it would even be an issue, it was a great national debate. former prose theodore roosevelt said he was only tepidly in favor of women's suffrage. >> reporter: those at the marina green said women have a lot to celebrate, but at time that they still paid $0.82 for every $1 a man is paid it's far from. >> the first congress elected with women's vote after suffrage came. >> reporter: it's primetime for another cross-country drive to washington. this day to remember how far women have come turned out to be a reminder of how far they still have to go. still to come on "a second look," we'll tell you how the

first bill president obama ever signed was aimed at equalizing pay for women. aln. subway. eat bold!

. one of the ongoing battles in the fights for women's right is the fight for equal pay. a week after barack obama became president the first bill he signed was the fair pay act, making it easier for female employees to sue when they are paid less than men for the same work. >> reporter: president prez baltimore took center stage, but notice the woman to to his right. >>lily ledbetter says she learned she was earning less than men. the supreme court threw out her lawsuit, saying she waited too long after her first paycheck to file it.

at that point she was shorted hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of and, in fact, i will never see a cent out of my case, but with the passage of the president's sight, i have a richer reward. >> reporter: michelle boom, threw a white house reception, honoring the name gauntt she saw unfairness when she saw it and was willing to do something about, because it was right thing to do, plain and simple. >> under the new law, workers can file discrimination suits six months after their paychecks, but critics say it will be a boom for lawyers. >> it eliminates the incentive to move quickly and stop discrimination. >> this law just doesn't apply to gender discrimination, but race, religion and disable. it's actually an amend to the

1964 civil right act. >> men and women shall have equal rights throughout the united states and every place subject to its jurisdiction. two republican members of congress would first introduce the equal rights amendment in 1923, but went nowhere and even though it was reintroduced in virtually every. captions brought to you by comcast. after that for decades, the house and senate would not pass the amendment until 1972. it them had six years to get the approval of the required 38 states. it would get 35 and thus fail. in 1969, feminist author was stumping the nation, drumming up support for the equal rights amendment. ktvu's andrew boggs brought us this report from fredon came to san francisco. >> reporter: now it's filled with females who spent 24 hours a day, chemming ways to achieve equal rights for women. national president betty fredon is in san francisco to conduct

west coast board meetings for her group. she staid at the fairmont. >> excuse me, betty, look like you are really successful today. >> we seemed to desex greeted the squire room and i imagine it's the first time on a weekday, when this place has been for men only that women were admitted. we considered it a victory, but however, it has to stop being for men-only from now on. >> reporter: why? >> because, it is unconstitutional to bar any class of people from public accommodation, and women are a class of people. >> reporter: the men who must wear jackets before they are allowed inside really didn't seem to mind the presence of the opposite sex. pardon me, sir, what did you think about having women here in the lunch hour-it's a bit strange. i have never seen them before.

>> reporter: do you ob? >> no, i don't really ob. i think it probably improves the scenery. >> reporter: thank you well, i think it's just nifty. i think they joined the historic ranks of gertrude stein. >> reporter: do you ob? >> motreally. if they want to come in. >> reporter: the general manager manager of the hotel had these comments. >> oh, i love them. i love them. i wish there were more of them. all the restaurants and hotels love them. >> reporter: if you love women, why did the sign say eye men- only?" this place has opened as a club many years ago and it has traditionally been a men's club. i don't know why they don let me into the women's athletics club, but they don't. >> reporter: being a woman, i couldn't resist the opportunity to have lunch in the special room. i broke tradition, but i also broke my diet, so what does

that prove? this is andrea boggs reporting from the squire room at the fairmont in san francisco. when we come back on "a second look," from tragedy to triumph, diane feinstein's pier nearing political career and look back at the administration that sought to equalize men and women's access to college, including college sports.

. over the years dianne feinstein has rep a number of firsts for women. she was the first female president of the san francisco board of supervisors and the city's first woman mayor, california's first female senator and the first female member of the senate judiciary committee. feinstein was first elect to the senate in 1992 in a special election to replace pete wilson after he became governor of california.

in 2000, ktvu political editor randy shandobil talked to her. >> reporter: election night 200 the voters of california re- elect 67-year-old dianne feinstein for the united states senate by an overwhelming margin. it's a moment of triumph for a woman who has been a pioneer in california politics, but it was tragedy, not triumph that catapulted her career. the year was 1978, san francisco board of supervisors president diane feinstein delivered stunning news to a shocked city. >> bothmayorr and supervisor

milk have died. >> i felt i had accomplished what i wanted to accomplish and frankly, his death really knocked me for a loop, and i just didn't feel like i with aned to continue. >> reporter: but with the mayor and the first openly gay city supervisor assassinated, she says she had a new sense of purpose. >> i made the decision that i didn't want to assassination to succeed, therefore i was going to carry out george's mandate, until i could become mayor on my own. >> reporter: did you ever feel threatened and uneasy about your own security? >> well, in the '70s, i had been through those terrorist events, a group called new world liberation front that had blown up certain pg&e substations, and had come after

some members of the board of supervisors. i think there were three of us, and so they put a bomb at my home, which detonated, but fortunately it dropped before freezing at the detonation point, and the plastic explosive that was in it didn't explode. it just detonated. >> reporter: after that attack, feinstein carried a concealed weapon when they walked othospital to visit her dying husband. >> there was so much hate in the city. that i decided that what i had to do was put the bricks together again, and you see, in the curious of doing it, it was a learning experience for me. and it sort of formulated my political philosoph. >> reporter: the new mayor decided to reach out to a angry

and vocal gay community. after white was found gilliv manslaughter in the death of s. >> whenn somebody said we had purplelessions appearing on the body of some of of our people and we don't know what it is. >> reporter: lesions were a decease linked to aids. as the '80s gain, san francisco became aware of a terrifying new disease. feinstein says she tried to teach other mayor what's san francisco new about aids, but there was a problem. >> in those early days mayors didn't want to hear about it. they can't want to confront the issue. it was that taboo. >> reporter: and in san francisco, the mayor was once again facing controversy, she was determined to close the

public bathhouses, where gay men met for unprotected. >> we you can't get the points of contagion, actually licensed by the city. i mean, it's the absolutely wrong thing for a city to do. >> reporter: there was a decision that there was really no moderate answer on. >> there was no moderate answer and we took a lot of flack. >> reporter: the city close the bathhouses and in an unlikely alliance, the guy community joined gun advocates. the recall failed. she has since sponsored major gun control legislation in the senate, include a ban on some semi-automatic weapons. she ties her interests in gun control directly to the day that put her in the mayor's office. >> i believe to this day, if dan white didn't have a weapon, he wouldn't have done what he did. >> reporter: dianne feinstein

returns to the capitol this month, a political centrist in the midst of polarized extremes. >> when when he come back on "a second look," we look at one piece of legislation brought together genderrer equality, including college sports.

early '00, congress told colleges and universities to stop treating men and women's sports differently and spend equal amounts of money and attention on both sexes. known as title 9 of the education code it required professional school and colleges to provide equal opportunities to both men and women. the number of female doctors, lawyers and other professionals increased dramatically in the following decades, but a ktvu san francisco examiner investigation found despite the federal mandate, the school's athletic programs still had a ways to go. here is joe fonzi error from eleven years ago. >> reporter: it's probably the

most talked about, yet misunderstood law in collegiate sports. it's called title 9. congress passed it in 1972, requiring equal opportunity for women in college athletics. 27 long years later it remains controversial and only partially fulfilled. >> we have made a lot of progress, but think having equivalent opportunities for women are still lacking in many areas. >> i think there is a kind of reverse discrimination, when you don't do it sport by sport to tell my players that men have eight scholarships and men have the equivalent is not right in my sport. >> reporter: a ktvu san francisco examiner investigation found schools like cal and stanford are working to meet the requirements of the law, including you one that says the percentage of women athletes on campus should be the same as percentage of women in the

overall student body. women make up 50% of the student body at both schools. >> i would love to get to 50% and that will be the ultimate goal, but you have to try to do it and be able to fund it and have a sport that female athletes really want to participate in. >> reporter: adding women sport they can comply with the law. at berkeley and stanford, three new sports have been added. >> i like the adtude at stanford, in terms of trying to add women's sports as opposed to cutting men's spores. >> reporter: some schools meet the goes by cutting some men's teams. >> the women prosper this year and we're limiting the number of athletes on the men's teams. >> reporter: the 900-pound gorilla throwing a of this out of balance is best-known and wealthiest college sport of all, football. there is no women's equivalent to football, which means if a

university with a big football program needs to get equal numbers for weapon, there has to be a whole lot of women playing other sports. >> you choose football and you have chosen to give 100 of your tuns to male ails. so now you have to decide what you are going to do with rest of your tuns for men and how will you allocate your 400 tuns for women? >> reporter: the answer for smaller schools has been to drop football. that is not an option at big schools, where few on campus would even want to consider it. >> we come from a family of football players and baseball players, so even as a female, that is what i have been attracted to. >> reporter: and the law says "the universities must be "meeting the needs of their female students." so are they-all of these numbers are fine, but when we do exit interviews with our seniors and i have learned some things over the years that we had to change. how do you feel when you walk in the weight room, do you feel

intimidated? that is gender equality. >> i have some friends they are on teams, and women, and they don't feel particularly that way. >> i kind of think they should be working towards getting more women in the business schools and more women in the sciences and math, kind of then sports. >> reporter: the overall number of women in collegiate sports still needs to improve to comply with the law. women coaches at berkeley and stanford are still generally making less than men's coaches, but projects, such as the new pavilion on berkeley campus with equal accommodations down to the square foo footage of offices is that evidence that as impretty sure as the implementation of the lame still be, it's having an effect. >> that is for this week's "a second look." i'm frank somerville and we'll see you again next week of the