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

[pameladean]

Even if there is something ineluctably masculine about werewolves, just smacking that concept with a large heavy object would sure make ME happy.

I had a female werewolf in my novel, but had to cut that whole character out. I am hoping to put her in the sequel.

Edited to correct typo that kind of ruined the reference.

P.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Will chanting "Sequel, sequel" help? :-)
And yes, I completely agree with you. I just thought it was interesting and rather timely when I got the link from Pam's blog.