After the Dobbs ruling and before the midterm elections, Gloria Steinem sat down with “another crazed magazine woman,” Vanity Fair editor in chief Radhika Jones, for a wide-ranging conversation on reproductive rights, Ms. magazine, and the upcoming elections.

“In a real sense, if you don’t vote you don’t exist,” Steinem said, an especially meaningful reminder when the right to abortion is no longer federally guaranteed.

Steinem, a contributing editor to the November issue of VF, has been an activist, organizer, and often the face of the women’s movement for over a half century, as well as a writer and founding editor of Ms. magazine, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. 

As Steinem mentions to Jones in their conversation, she can never tell if it’s a good or bad thing that we’re still talking about reproductive rights well into the 21st century, but here we are regardless. “Either we make decisions over our own bodies or we’re not living in a democracy,” Steinem said. “It is fundamental. Women or men, we need to be able to decide the fate of our own bodies.” 

Find more of Steinem’s words in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. She also helped the magazine connect to those across the country on the front line of the fight for reproductive rights. 

“We need to make more trouble,” she said, by way of signing off.