During the 1960s, Fonda engaged in
political activism in support of the
Civil Rights Movement, and in
opposition to the Vietnam War. She supported
Huey Newton and the
Black Panthers in the early 1970s, stating: "Revolution is an act of love; we are the children of revolution, born to be rebels. It runs in our blood." She called the Black Panthers "our revolutionary vanguard ... we must support them with love, money,
propaganda and risk." She has been involved in the
feminist movement since the 1970s and dovetails her activism in support of
civil rights. Fonda and
Barbra Streisand joined with ten other women in the entertainment industry of Greater Los Angeles to establish the
Hollywood Women's Political Committee (HWPC) in 1984. The committee's initial goal was to assist in the presidential campaign of
Walter Mondale and his running mate
Geraldine Ferraro. The Mondale–Ferraro ticket failed against incumbents
Ronald Reagan and
George H. W. Bush, but HWPC retrenched itself with a list of
New Left political goals, and helped to turn the
Senate Democratic in 1986. In 1992, HWPC helped to elect a record-breaking number of women legislators, an achievement called the
Year of the Woman. Described by observers as carrying forward the same political goals as Fonda and Streisand, HWPC continued its activism through political setbacks of 1994 and 1996, finally dissolving in 1997. During their run, the HWPC was called "the single most-powerful entertainment group" in politics.
Opposition to the Vietnam War On May 4, 1970, Fonda appeared before an assembly at the
University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, to speak on
G.I. rights and issues. The end of her presentation was met with a discomfiting silence until
Beat poet
Gregory Corso staggered onto the stage, drunk, and challenged Fonda, using a four-letter expletive: why hadn't she addressed the
shooting of four students at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard that had just taken place? In her autobiography, Fonda revisited the incident: "I was shocked by the news and felt like a fool." On the same day, she joined a protest march on the home of university president Ferrel Heady. The protesters called themselves "They Shoot Students, Don't They?"—a reference to Fonda's recently released film ''They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'', which had just screened in Albuquerque. Also in 1970, Fonda spoke out against the war at a rally organized by
Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. She offered to help raise funds for VVAW and was rewarded with the title of Honorary National Coordinator. That fall, Fonda started a tour of college campuses on which she raised funds for the organization. As noted by
The New York Times, Fonda was a "major patron" of the VVAW. For example, as part of the settlement of a lawsuit Fonda filed against
Playboy in 1966, In 1971, Fonda,
Fred Gardner, and
Donald Sutherland formed the
FTA tour ("Free The Army", a play on the troop expression "Fuck The Army"), an antiwar road show designed as an answer to
Bob Hope's
USO tour. The tour, described as "political vaudeville" by Fonda, visited military towns along the
West Coast in an attempt to establish dialogue with soldiers about their upcoming deployments to Vietnam. The dialogue was made into a movie (
F.T.A.) that contains strong, frank criticism of the war by servicemembers; it was released in 1972.
Visit to Hanoi Between 1965 and 1972, almost 300 Americans – mostly civil rights activists, teachers, and pastors – traveled to
North Vietnam. American travelers to North Vietnam were routinely harassed upon their return home. Fonda visited Vietnam in July 1972, traveling to
Hanoi to witness the bombing damage to the
dikes. After touring and photographing dike systems in North Vietnam, she said the United States had been
intentionally targeting the dike system along the Red River. Sweden's ambassador to Vietnam likewise said the bomb damage was "methodic". Columnist
Joseph Kraft, who was also touring North Vietnam, said the damage was incidental and was being used as propaganda by Hanoi. Due to the publicity surrounding Fonda's visit, the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted a secret report, concluding that there was "no concerted and intentional bombing of North Vietnam's vital dike system." On the other hand, French geographer
Yves Lacoste published an analysis in 1973 in which he concluded that the dike system was intentionally targeted in the eastern region of the delta. Fonda was photographed seated on a North Vietnamese
anti-aircraft gun; the photo outraged a number of Americans, and earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane". In her 2005 autobiography, she wrote that she was manipulated into sitting on the battery; she had been horrified at the implications of the pictures. In a 2011 entry on her official website, Fonda explained: It happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit ... The translator told me that the soldiers wanted to sing me a song. He translated as they sung. It was a song about the day 'Uncle Ho' declared their country's independence in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square. I heard these words: 'All men are created equal; they are given certain rights; among these are life, Liberty and Happiness.' These are the words Ho pronounced at the historic ceremony. I began to cry and clap. 'These young men should not be our enemy. They celebrate the same words Americans do.' The soldiers asked me to sing for them in return ... I memorized a song called 'Dậy mà đi' ["Get up and go"], written by anti-war South Vietnamese students. I knew I was slaughtering it, but everyone seemed delighted that I was making the attempt. I finished. Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me ... Here is my best, honest recollection of what happened: someone (I don't remember who) led me towards the gun, and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. The cameras flashed ... It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. But if they did I can't blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen ... a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever ... But the photo exists, delivering its message regardless of what I was doing or feeling. I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm. Fonda made radio broadcasts on Hanoi Radio throughout her two-week tour, describing her visits to villages, hospitals, schools, and factories that had been bombed, and denouncing U.S. military policy. During the course of her visit, Fonda visited American
prisoners of war (POWs), and brought back messages from them to their families. When stories of torture of returning POWs were later being publicized by the Nixon administration, Fonda said that those making such claims were "hypocrites and liars and pawns", adding about the prisoners she visited, "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." In addition, Fonda told
The New York Times in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture ... but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie." Her visits to the POW camp led to persistent rumors that prisoners had been coerced into meeting with Fonda by the North Vietnamese with torture, which were repeated widely, and continued to circulate on the Internet decades later. Fonda, as well as the named POWs, have denied the rumors, continued to mobilize antiwar activists in the US after the 1973
Paris Peace Agreement, until 1975 when the United States withdrew from Vietnam. Because of her tour of North Vietnam during wartime and the subsequent rumors, resentment against her persists among some veterans and serving U.S. military. For example, when a
U.S. Naval Academy plebe ritually shouted out "Goodnight, Jane Fonda!", the entire company of midshipmen plebes replied "Goodnight, bitch!" This practice has since been prohibited by the academy's
Plebe Summer Standard Operating Procedures. In 2005, Michael A. Smith, a U.S. Navy veteran, was arrested for disorderly conduct in
Kansas City, Missouri, after he spat chewing tobacco in Fonda's face during a book-signing event for her autobiography,
My Life So Far. He told reporters that he "consider[ed] it a debt of honor", adding "she spit in our faces for 37 years. It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did." Fonda refused to press charges. When
Los Angeles County tried to name April 30 as "Jane Fonda Day" for her environmental work in 2024, it was met with immediate backlash from the region's large
Vietnamese American community because it fell on the same day as what the diaspora call
Black April, the day when
Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces; the day was later moved to April 8 instead to avoid further controversy with the county stating that April 30 was originally chosen because it was the scheduled day the county met to commemorate people.
Regrets In a 1988 interview with
Barbara Walters, Fonda expressed regret for some of her comments and actions, stating: I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families. ... I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless. In a
60 Minutes interview on March 31, 2005, Fonda reiterated that she had no regrets about her trip to
North Vietnam in 1972, with the exception of the anti-aircraft-gun photo. She stated that the incident was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege". Fonda said, "The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine." She later distinguished between regret over the use of her image as
propaganda and pride for her anti-war activism: "There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with the POWs. Both sides were using the POWs for propaganda ... It's not something that I will apologize for." Fonda said she had no regrets about the broadcasts she made on Radio Hanoi, something she asked the North Vietnamese to do: "Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war."
Subject of government surveillance In 2013, it was revealed that Fonda was one of approximately 1,600 Americans whose communications between 1967 and 1973 were monitored by the United States
National Security Agency (NSA) as part of
Project MINARET, a program that some NSA officials have described as "disreputable if not downright illegal". Fonda's communications, as well as those of her husband,
Tom Hayden, were intercepted by Britain's
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Under the
UKUSA Agreement, intercepted data on Americans were sent to the U.S. government.
1970 arrest On November 2, 1970, Fonda was arrested by authorities at
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on suspicion of
drug trafficking. As she wrote in 2009, "I told them what [the vitamins] were but they said they were getting orders from the White House. I think they hoped this 'scandal' would cause the college speeches to be canceled and ruin my respectability." After lab tests confirmed the pills were vitamins, the charges were dropped with little media attention. Fonda's mugshot from the arrest, in which she
raises her fist in a sign of solidarity, has since become a widely published image of the actress. It was used as the poster image for the 2018
HBO documentary on Fonda, "Jane Fonda in Five Acts", with a giant billboard sporting the image erected in
Times Square in September 2018. In 2017, she began selling merchandise with her mugshot image to benefit the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential. Through her work, Fonda said she wants to help abuse victims "realize that [rape and abuse] is not our fault". Fonda said that her difficult past led her to become such a passionate activist for women's rights. The actress is an active supporter of the V-Day movement, which works to stop violence against women and girls. In 2001, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health, which aims to help prevent teen pregnancy. She said she was "brought up with the disease to please" in her early life. Fonda revealed in 2014 that her mother,
Frances Ford Seymour, was recurrently sexually abused as young as eight, and this may have led to her suicide when Jane was 12. in 2006 Fonda has been a longtime supporter of feminist causes, including
V-Day, of which she is an honorary chairperson, a movement to stop violence against women, inspired by the off-Broadway hit
The Vagina Monologues. She was at the first summit in 2002, bringing together founder
Eve Ensler, Afghan women oppressed by the
Taliban, and a
Kenyan activist campaigning to save girls from
genital mutilation. In 2001, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at
Emory University in
Atlanta to help prevent adolescent pregnancy through training and program development. On February 16, 2004, Fonda led a march through
Ciudad Juárez, with
Sally Field,
Eve Ensler and other women, urging Mexico to provide sufficient resources to newly appointed officials in helping investigate the murders of hundreds of women in the rough border city. In 2004, she also served as a mentor to the first all-
transgender cast of
The Vagina Monologues. In the days before the September 17, 2006, Swedish elections, Fonda went to Sweden to support the new political party
Feministiskt initiativ in their election campaign. In
My Life So Far, Fonda stated that she considers
patriarchy to be harmful to men as well as women. She also states that for many years, she feared to call herself a feminist, because she believed that all feminists were "anti-male". But now, with her increased understanding of patriarchy, she feels that feminism is beneficial to both men and women, and states that she "still loves men", adding that when she divorced Ted Turner, she felt like she had also divorced the world of patriarchy, and was very happy to have done so. In April 2016, Fonda said that while she was 'glad' that
Bernie Sanders was running, she predicted
Hillary Clinton would become the first female
president, whose supposed win Fonda believed would result in a "violent backlash." Clinton did not become president and got defeated by
Republican Party's nominee businessman
Donald Trump in the general election later that year. Fonda went on to say that we need to "help men understand why they are so threatened – and change the way we view masculinity". In March 2020, Fonda endorsed Sanders for the Democratic nomination in the
2020 election, calling him the "climate candidate."
Women's Media Center In 2005, along with
Robin Morgan and
Gloria Steinem, she cofounded the
Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership training, and the creation of original content. Fonda serves on the board of the organization. Based in Los Angeles, she has lived all over the world, including six years in France and 20 in Atlanta.
LGBTQ+ support Fonda has publicly shown her support of the
LGBTQ+ community many times throughout her career. In August 2021, Fonda, the cast of
Grace and Frankie, and other advocates joined to support a fundraiser hosted by the
Los Angeles LGBT Center to help members of the LGBTQ+ community during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Fonda spoke out as an LGBTQ+ ally long before it was common. She appeared in a video of a 1979 interview during the
White Night Riots in San Francisco after the assassination of
Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in California. During the interview she was asked if the gay community was still being discriminated against, to which she replied that they "are culturally, psychologically, economically, politically" being discriminated against. Fonda was then asked if the gay community has used her as an advocate and she replied that she hopes they will use her, though she stressed that "they are a very powerful movement, they don't need me, but they like me (and) they know by working together we can be stronger than either entity is by itself." The endeavor succeeded and the
Daybreak Star Cultural Center was constructed in the city's Discovery Park. In addition to environmental reasons, Fonda has been a critic of oil pipelines because of their being built without consent on Native American tribal land. In 2017, Fonda responded to American President Donald Trump's mandate to resume construction of the controversial North Dakota Pipelines by saying that Trump "does this illegally because he has not gotten consent from the tribes through whose countries this goes" and pointing out that "the U.S. has agreed to treaties that require them to get the consent of the people who are affected, the indigenous people who live there."
Israeli–Palestinian conflict In December 2002, Fonda visited
Israel and the
West Bank as part of a tour focusing on stopping violence against women. She demonstrated with
Women in Black against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip outside the residence of Israel's Prime Minister. She later visited Jewish and Arab doctors, and patients at a Jerusalem hospital, followed by visits to
Ramallah to see a physical rehabilitation center and Palestinian refugee camp. In September 2009, she was one of more than 1,500 signatories to a letter protesting the
2009 Toronto International Film Festival's spotlight on
Tel Aviv. The protest letter said that the spotlight on Tel Aviv was part of "the Israeli propaganda machine" because it was supported in part by funding from the Israeli government and had been described by the Israeli Consul General Amir Gissin as being part of a
Brand Israel campaign intended to draw attention away from
Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. Other signers included actor
Danny Glover, musician
David Byrne, journalist
John Pilger, and authors
Alice Walker,
Naomi Klein, and
Howard Zinn. Fonda, in
The Huffington Post, said she regretted some of the language used in the original protest letter and how it "was perhaps too easily misunderstood. It certainly has been wildly distorted. Contrary to the lies that have been circulated, the protest letter was not demonizing Israeli films and filmmakers." She continued, writing "the greatest 're-branding' of Israel would be to celebrate that country's long standing, courageous and robust peace movement by helping to end the blockade of Gaza through negotiations with all parties to the conflict, and by stopping the expansion of West Bank settlements. That's the way to show Israel's commitment to peace, not a PR campaign. There will be no two-state solution unless this happens." Fonda emphasized that she, "in no way, support[s] the destruction of Israel. I am for the two-state solution. I have been to Israel many times and love the country and its people."
Opposition to the Iraq War Fonda argued that the
Iraq War would turn people all over the world against America, and asserted that a global hatred of America would result in more terrorist attacks in the aftermath of the war. In July 2005, Fonda planned an anti-war bus tour in March 2006 with her daughter and several families of military veterans, saying that some war veterans she had met while on her book tour had urged her to speak out against the
Iraq War. She later canceled the tour due to concerns that she would divert attention from
Cindy Sheehan's activism. In September 2005, Fonda was scheduled to join British politician and anti-war activist
George Galloway at two stops on his U.S. book tour—Chicago, and
Madison, Wisconsin. She canceled her appearances at the last minute, citing instructions from her doctors to avoid travel following recent hip surgery. On January 27, 2007, Fonda participated in an anti-war rally and march held on the
National Mall in Washington, D.C., declaring that "silence is no longer an option". She spoke at an anti-war rally earlier that day at the
Navy Memorial, where members of the organization
Free Republic picketed in a counter protest.
Fonda and Kerry In the
2004 presidential election, her name was used as a disparaging epithet against
John Kerry, a former VVAW leader, who was then the
Democratic Party presidential candidate.
Republican National Committee Chairman
Ed Gillespie called Kerry a "Jane Fonda Democrat". Kerry's opponents also
circulated a photograph showing Fonda and Kerry in the same large crowd at a 1970 anti-war rally, though they sat several rows apart. A faked composite photograph, which gave a false impression that the two had shared a speaker's platform, was also circulated.
Environmentalism In 2015, Fonda expressed disapproval of President
Barack Obama's permitting of
Arctic drilling (
Petroleum exploration in the Arctic) at the Sundance Film Festival. In July, she marched in a Toronto protest called the "March for Jobs, Justice, and Climate", which was organized by dozens of nonprofits, labor unions, and environmental activists, including Canadian author
Naomi Klein. The march aimed to show businesses and politicians alike that climate change is inherently linked to issues that may seem unrelated. In addition to issues of civil rights, Fonda has been an opponent of oil developments and their adverse effects on the environment. In 2017, while on a trip with
Greenpeace to protest oil developments, Fonda criticized
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying at the summit on climate change in Paris, known as the
Paris agreement, Trudeau "talked so beautifully of needing to meet the requirements of the climate treaty and to respect and hold to the treaties with indigenous people ... and yet he has betrayed every one of the things he committed to in Paris." Since at least 2019, she has been a supporter of global environmental organizations including
GreenFaith and
350.org. She spoke at the Fire Drill Fridays protest in Washington, D.C. wherein protestors condemned expansion of the
fossil fuel industry. In October 2019, Fonda was arrested three times in consecutive weeks protesting climate change outside the
United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. She was arrested with members of the group Oil Change International on October 11, with
Grace and Frankie co-star
Sam Waterston on October 18, and with actor
Ted Danson on October 25. On November 1, Fonda was arrested for the fourth consecutive Friday; also arrested were
Catherine Keener and
Rosanna Arquette. On December 5, 2019, Fonda explained her position in a
New York Times op-ed. In March 2022, Fonda launched the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, a
political action committee with the purpose of ousting politicians supporting the fossil fuel industry. In September 2023, she participated in New York City's
March to End Fossil Fuels. In 2024, she was a featured guest at 350.org's Food & Water Watch event.
Artificial intelligence In September 2024, Fonda joined over 125 actors, directors, and musicians in signing an open letter urging
Governor Gavin Newsom to sign
SB 1047, a Californian
AI safety bill that would, amongst other things, hold companies training the largest AI models liable if their models cause mass casualties or over $500 million in damages. The letter, also signed by figures such as
Alec Baldwin,
Pedro Pascal and
Kelly Rowland, said that the "Grave threats from AI used to be the stuff of science fiction, but not anymore," and that AI companies should implement "reasonable safeguards" against those risks.
Opposition to the Iran War Fonda has opposed the
Iran War after
strikes were launched by the U.S. and
Israel against
Iran on February 28, 2026. She took part in an anti-war protest in
Los Angeles, California after the U.S. launched strikes against Iran including an airstrike on
an elementary school in
Minab,
Iran. She also likened the war to the
Vietnam War and said that the war has endangered
U.S. troops in the
Middle East. == Other activities ==