Women and werewolves

[catherineldf]

Webzine Jezebel (http://jezebel.com/5461712/the-tyranny-of-sexy-female-werewolves-in-pop-culture) takes on the question of why most werewolves are male, at least in film and TV land. Reasons seem to hinge on the perception of werewolves as inherently masculine and just plain not sexy. They're big and strong and violent, not to mention hairy. Vampires can be elegant and sexy, but that's harder to do with were.

Sure there have been some successes with female werewolves like the Gingersnap movies and a few others, but they are in the minority. On the other hand, editor Pam Keesey brings some excellent points about the early historical associations between women particularly witches, and wolves (http://www.myspace.com/pamkeesey, equating sex and power.

As a writer working on a novel about middle-aged women who are also werewolves, I'm pretty invested in whether or not anyone will actually read the book. What do you think? Are werewolves any more "male" than any other kind of monster?

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Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Sexism is sexism, and male is the default. And werewolves, as noted, have some aspects that make them fit well with the default cultural images of men. But I think there's plenty of room for female werewolves, especially in print.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Me too, oddly enough. :-) But I do think some interesting points on pop culture and perception were being raised.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I'm cranky enough this week that I found them more tired (girls can't be werewolves! werewolves are hairy! and violent!) than interesting :/ YMMV, and that's probably healthy. :) Meanwhile, the idea of menopausal werewolf women definitely helps un-crankify me at the moment. First, they start sprouting hair in funny places. Then, their temper gets a noticably shortened fuse. Then, they find they possess and extraordinary strength, right around the full moon...yep, works for me.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

True. :-) And given the quality of the "Underworld" movies, I'm thinking Beckinsale should re-evaluate.
Re: menopausal werewolves. I'm finding that when I'm doing readings from the novel in progress, women of a "certain age" do a lot of nodding and mm-hming. Evidently I'm onto something.
Thanks for the encouragement! I woke up with a migraine from hell today so it all helps. :-)