Like, I don’t think I have to explain how perfect an analogy lycanthropy is for a period, so why is it that the only real films exploring that are Ginger Snaps and maybe Turning Red if you stretch the definition. I get that there are female werewolves in media but they’re usually side characters with little depth.
I’d also say werewolves are typically presented as a masc thing, like the whole juvenile “dogs are boys, cats are girls” presentation in a lot of media, but even that could lead to some interesting storytelling with typically masc characters having to go through a very fem experience.
Please, we cannot let the only deep exploration of lycanthropy and sexuality in mainstream media be Joannas botched attempts to make it an analogy for aids and then have a character attack and infect children. So I guess this is a stupid question and a call for requests.
wereman is man in old english
werewolf - manwolf
A female werewolf would be a wifwolf.
If werewolf is manwolf, wouldn’t wereman be manman?
were meant man in modern english
and man meant human
wereman - weapons human (man)
wifman - weaving human (woman)
eventually we got rid of the prefixes
TIL! Thanks
I’d theorize it’d to not sound like theyre shitting on periods too much
The real question is “When a female transforms into her werewolf form, does she also sprout 8 more tiddies?”
There is a whole genre of werewolf porn literature and the audience is primarily female. Lindsey Ellis did a couple of videos about this a few years ago.
That’s almost definitely of mostly make werewolves, not female ones like op is asking about
I would say there’s the obvious industry sexism that limits it, but I do question if there’s a significant market for it? Werewolves are generally characterized as big, strong, hairy, violent, and bestial, and those tend to be characteristics a lot of women either don’t or don’t want to identify with. While there’s elements of werewolf mythos that some women might identify with, the common understanding of them as an archetype of everything that the social construction of femininity tells women they should be suppressing in themselves. While there’s certainly women out there that reject the common social construction and even actively defy it, I would suggest that that’s a rather niche market. That doesn’t excuse not publishing material for that market, lots of works do quite well playing to the niche, but I wonder if books like that would have any chance of making it into mainstream consciousness… at least without a fandom that becomes known for being a bit… rabid (I’m sorry, I had to).
Nobody wants to make content for guys who wanna bang warewolves
Probably the ‘uncanny valley’ effect. It is too real and jarring. I also think making a story out of the concept will be very difficult to make entertaining. People want things they can relate to. Men won’t be able to relate to it and just find it jarring and women will just read having period = being a monster and won’t appreciate the implication…
If you think something good can be made of it you have to write something yourself :/
You need to watch the TV show Wolf Like Me.
That looks cool, thanks for the rec!
Technically it would be called wifwolf or wifewolf, unless by fem-focused you mean femboy werewolf.
I have no answer I just wanted to throw a fun fact here.
But there might be some fanfictions about wifwolf, i did found an art of someone drawing or making digital art of wifwolf on tumblr
I think I knew that! Cos, like, it’s Saxon right, wyrman and wyfman, right?
unless by fem-focused you mean femboy werewolf.
As in the femboy becomes a… bear?
I disagree. Most people use the generic term for all genders in english, similar to other languages that may have a grammatical gender.
A Woman who is a Werewolf is a weird thing to need an extra word. It’s not like wolfs act in our gender norms and expression.
Alan Moore’s The Curse is in that direction.
Thanks for the recommendation, I haven’t kept up with Alan Moore outside of his famous stuff, so that’ll be a good exploration.
They’re all on ao3
I’m afraid I’ve only heard of ao3 as being a somewhat spicy website, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Well, I think part of the reason is the target audiences.
In movies, they shoot for general audiences as horror usually, which means you just want big and scary, so the gender of the werewolf doesn’t matter. They’ll just be big and scary with little character development anyway, so the male dominated industry just sticks with the default.
In books, however, the target audience now is the paranormal romance audience, which skews heavily female. You’d think this would result in more werewolf women being the main character, but it’s the opposite. The readers don’t want to be werewolves, they want the fantasy of fucking them and taming the bad boy (the genre is very much a hetero dominated one). So the viewpoint character is most often going to be just some woman drawn into whatever the situation is.
Mind you, we’re talking traditionally published here, there’s plenty of casual writers putting stories out on an archive of our own.
However, the field is not empty! Forgive the source, butGoodreads is still good about being able to find things by topic
The third one on that list, Bitten, is part of a fairly decent series that isn’t just soft core erotica or pure romance. Leans little heavy into the whole “alpha” bullshit with the werewolves, but that’s a matter of taste.
Some of those are even more standard urban fantasy rather than paranormal romance, though I’ve found that any urban fantasy with a female protagonist is usually going to include romance at some point.
Anyway, I still think it comes down to writers/producers having a target audience, and putting out what they think will profit rather than primarily trying to explore a concept in depth. You really don’t see much of that in any genre tbh, what with so many production companies and publishers wanting only to invest in something that sells, and having a narrow view of what that is.
I think the thing that I’m learning is the “male dominated industry” part is a hefty portion of the answer to that question.
Terry Pratchett features a prominent female werewolf in the Watch books of Discworld
You know I love a good Pratchett, but even there Anguia (sorry, I forget her name) only appears as a side character, I did almost bring her up to make a point of universes where werewolves exist only male ones get any real spotlight, but she is the most well detailed mainstream example I suppose.
Angua without the i. I was going to mention her if no one else did.
Maybe supports your point though as IIRC she was sort of forced into the watch by an affirmative action campaign from the city. I think there were some sexist attitudes from the male coppers.
Slightly tangential but there was a teenage fantasy series by David Eddings featuring some sorcerers who were basically clarting about as wolves half the time, one of the main characters, Polgara was i think effectively a werewolf, but it was by choice rather than forced by the moon.
Heh, this is interesting, i had no idea male werewolves went back as far as Gilgamesh. https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/non-fiction/although-male-werewolves-have-appeared-in-fiction-since-the-very-beginning-female-werewolves-are-relatively-new-literary-monsters-so-where-do-these-female-werewolves-come-from-and-what-baggage-do-t/
She’s a pretty major character later in the Watch series, I think The Fifth Elephant in particular.
[off topic?]
Joe Abercrombie’s latest book, The Devils, has a female werewolf. A six foot Viking woman who was incredibly dangerous before she turned, she is now part of a team that does the Vatican’s dirty work.
Fun book.
I came here to mention this. I loved the character and the self estime issues that came with being half a wild beast. The book in general is a good read as well.
I’m very surprised no one has tried to adapt his works.
There was a best served cold movie on the way but it got put on hiatus sadly. I’d kill for GoT like tv series about the first law books and the side ones, but I get why they want to start with best served cold. It stands on its own story wise and feels like medieval ocean elevens.
It looks like ‘The Devils’ is going to be a stand alone [who knows, right?]
Probably be the easiest one to start with, unless they do a movie about the female thief and her warrior bestie.
There’s a sequel book in the works and will be released May 2027 called, “Heretics”.
From a quick summary: James Cameron has acquired the film rights to Joe Abercrombie’s dark fantasy novel The Devils through his production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. Cameron, who will co-write the screenplay with Abercrombie, plans to begin development on the project after completing Avatar: Fire and Ash.
This is why I hate the interwebs.
Instead of having a pleasant surprise in 2027, I’ll be annoyed for the next 10 months.
Thanks a lot, pal!
[i kid, you couldn’t have known]
Sorry, I actually finished reading it a few months ago and really look forward to it. Alternatively I would suggest the book, “The Tainted Cup” by Robert Jackson Bennett. It’s a fantasy spin on Sherlock Holmes and after reading it and the sequel it’s fantastic. Third book comes out in august 😆.
Oh I shall have to look that up.
Tapping into another response her but adding on: there are a lot of bits of werewolf media that make little jokes about ‘the time of the month’ for werewolves. It’s an easy little joke to make. (Angua from the Terry Pratchett novels) But the other elements of werewolf tales are far less feminine. #notallwomen and all, but there isn’t a very prominent portrayal across all of fiction of women’s anger as savage or brutal the way there is with masculine anger. The most common portrayal of an angry man is shouting and open violence. The most common portrayal of an angry woman is the silent seethe or the shrill read-to-filth, rarely with open violence. The only sector I can think of that portrays women’s cycles as turning them into something to be feared is boomerhumor comedy about how wives and girlfriends become scary and irrational every month. There are older ladies who might have internalised that enough to identify with it but targeting them with that portrayal would be at odds with the demographic that seems most interested in supernatural fiction which trends young.
