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.
Originally the folk concept was heavily affiliated with violent sexual energy, occultism and dark ritualistic sadism. I guess male protagonists conform more readily to those gender stereotypes of the cyclically violent and uncontrollable rapist. During the few witch hunting incidents involving werewolf accusations, the accused were always male. They were also linked with profanation of tombs to devour the recently passed or cannibalism in general. It was also almost always portrayed as either permanent or even voluntary power. The involuntary property or its curse nature rarely universal. With the full moon transformation being almost entirely a Hollywood fabrication.
I think it is interesting to think about the weaving of gender into such symbolism, as the periodic monthly phenomenon is not universal. There’s an Armenian belief that it was a punishment to women, who had to eat children every night for seven years in wolf form. That one is very bleak, but more related to godly punishment of sin by having mothers destroy their locus of adoration, their own children and children in general.
Modern werewolves are related to late 19th century narratives, heavily inspired by Serbian vukodlaks. Dracula himself was kin to werewolves and could transform into one. With some interpreting the gothic tales as an expression of the contemporary anxieties and fears of the victorian era, specially the fears of the patriarchy towards anything they couldn’t control or understand. Anything that was besides the proper order and structure of religion and enlightenment.