I will just point out that it is silly to frame this as a question of "facts." It certainly isn't.
Yet, it is a question of facts, I'd claim: The idea that a woman might be an actor is not sexist per see. Sexism is not about distinguishing the sexes, but about attributing distinct moral values. The meaning of "actress" is "female actor". To say that <actress> is sexist, because it would distinguish female actors from male actors - is as silly as saying that <dog> is specist in that it distinguishes canine beings from wolves...
There is nothing -and there cannot be anything- sexist in a word such as <actress>. Sexism is an ideology, and the undeniable and very obvious fact is that a word cannot have an ideology: a word is not an intelligent being able of conceptualizing ideological things. A word itself isn't an ideology neither. An ideology needs the structured concord of sentence
s to appears as an ideology. A word is just a semantic brick that can be used to think, write or speak any ideology and its opposite.
Words have a true (ἔτυμον) meaning. In the case of <actress>, the true meaning is approximatively "feminine being who does something".
Words can have an official meaning. English words lack official meanings (because English doesn't have an official instance of normalization of its lexicon). French does, through the
Dictionnaire de l'Académie française which is published in the
Journal officiel de la République française and whose official meanings for <
acteur> are
1. Comédien ou comédienne de profession qui joue des rôles de façon habituelle ou fréquente, à la scène ou à l’écran. Un acteur de premier plan, de second rang. Une actrice tragique, dramatique, comique. Dans ce film, le réalisateur a associé aux acteurs des interprètes recrutés parmi les habitants du village. Spécialement. Acteur de complément, figurant. Fig. Elle a su feindre l’indignation en grande actrice.
2. Personne qui, volontairement ou non, participe à la conduite ou à l’exécution d’une affaire. Il aura été un des principaux acteurs de la négociation. De spectateur, il devint acteur malgré lui.
And then, there are the connotations, but, contrary to the true meaning and to the official meaning, which are absolute (in that there is only one true meaning, and some normalized official meanings), there are as many connotations as there are speakers, readers, writers, or listeners of the word. And everyone of them haves his own use, his own perception.
The perception that "actress" is sexist is a conflation, as shown by how the article from the
Los Angeles Times that you've linked sums it up. The article doesn't really question the word itself -it doesn't pretend that its true meaning would be sexist-, but questions how some people would had used it, how some people would had understood it: the whole article is about the word's connotations. It even states: "The phrase “female actor” may suggest a seriousness and muscularity that “actress” does not..." Considering that <female actor> is the exact paraphrase of <actress>, it becomes quite telling that it isn't about the word <actress> itself. It is also quite difficult to argue that <the actress is here and plays> would be sexist, while <the actor is here, she plays> wouldn't... as <... actor..., she...> = <actress>. What is perceived as sexist is, hence, quite clearly meta to the word itself.
That, when speaking about a female actor, what tends to be perceived as sexist by English feminists, the word <actress>, actually tends to be perceived as feminist by French feminists through the word <
actrice>; and what tends to be perceived as feminist, the word <actor>, actually tends to be perceived as sexist by French feminists through the word <
acteur> is also enlightening.
Why? Because English feminists fight to reduce the ability to distinguish sexes through the language, which is what French feminists denounce as an invisibilisation of women's fact. On the reverse, French feminists fight to enhance the ability to distinguish sexes through the language, which is what English feminist denounce as an unnecessary distinction of women from male men.
All of this results from a conflation between a word and how a word tend to be used: who can be feminist or sexist are speakers' thoughts, not the words they use in their speech. The difference of context is enough to totally reverse the situation between <actress> and <
actrice>. The difference of context being mostly, I perceive, that, while both in France and in England, phallocrates actively used to grant derogatory connotations to feminine nouns of functions and of professions, French phallocrates ultimately failed -so French feminists progressively conquered back the dignity of female nouns of functions and of professions- while English phallocrates ultimately succeeded -so English feminists progressively abandoned the derogatorily connoted nouns, and took for themselves the preserved masculine nouns (something that older French feminists also did, in the early 20th century..., but successive waves of younger feminism eventually chose to take the path of a more visible affirmation of their gender).
So yes, it is quite wrong to perceive <actress>'s sound (or <
acteur>'s sound) as sexist: it isn't. Only its use might be.
Someone who would defend that "actresses are as worthy as male actors, should not be treated differently and, hence, shall be paid as much as their male counterpart and shall be trusted when they denounce sexual assaults" would be infinitely more feminist than someone who would say that the sole value he "found[s ]to actors he employs is to take pictures under their skirts to see their vagina and to share it on the Internet".
And another fact is that it is possible to build the first sentence with <actress> and to build the second with <actor>.
So, to summary my point:
That many speakers who use <actress> sound sexist? undoubtedly.
That most speakers who use <actress> sound sexist? certainly.
That they sound sexist because they are sexist? certainly, but they are so because of how they combine words to formulate (to themselves or to others) their thought, not because of the words they use...
That the word <actress> sounds in itself sexist? perhaps, but wrongly, because of a conflation of that word with many or most of those who use it...
