Jane Fonda admits she ‘needs to feel that men find her attractive’

Oscar-winning actor and environmentalist said she used to believe feminism meant you ‘didn’t like men’

Jane Fonda has admitted she still places value in male approval when it comes to her looks.

In a candid interview with Grazia, the Oscar-winning actor, writer and environmentalist revealed that she struggled to relate to the feminist movements of the late Sixties and early Seventies, because she believed that it “meant you didn’t like men”.

“Then when I first became a feminist I didn’t really pay that much attention to how I looked,” she said.

“There was a space between Barbarella [1968] and Monster-in-Law [2005], where I didn’t really pay that much attention to how I looked on purpose, because I thought that to be taken seriously I had to look like I didn’t care how I looked.”

She continued: “A point came when I really became a feminist, not just theoretically in my head, but an embodied feminist, and I was confident in my feminism that I didn’t have to forgo looking good. You can look beautiful and still be a feminist.”

However, Fonda was then asked about her previous remark of having the “disease to please”, where women are made to feel as though they are required to make everyone else feel good, even if at their own expense.

“If I’m going to be on a Zoom meeting and I know there’s going to be a man – even if I go to a doctor and it’s a guy – I mean, I feel ashamed even admitting this, but I pay a little extra attention to how I look than I do if it’s a woman,” she said. “I became an adult in the Fifties and it’s just part of my DNA. I will probably feel that way on my deathbed.”

Left to right: Jane Fonda, Marcel Marceau and John Phillip Law in a scene from ‘Barbarella’ (Getty) (Getty)

Asked why she feels she needs to prove her attractiveness, she responded: “I need to feel that [men] think I’m attractive.

“I don’t mean sexy, I mean just look good for my age... I want them to say, ‘She looks good for her age.’”

Last week, Fonda appeared on the cover of Vogue Poland for its “Courage” issue, 62 years after her first appearance on Vogue US.

Vogue said it had chosen Fonda for the cover for her role as an activist and educator who “fights for the future of our planet”.

Fonda told the magazine that if she could describe herself with one adjective it would be “courageous”.

“For me, courage is an act of faith and taking a risk, even if reputation and my own safety are at stake,” she said.