Ginger Snaps, a 2000 Canadian film directed by John Fawcett, does intertwine lycanthropy, menstruation, and sexually transmitted disease through its main character, Ginger, who is attacked by a werewolf when she gets her first period. As she begins her transformation, she menstruates heavily, grows hair from her bite, and becomes sexually aggressive. She passes lycanthropy to others through unprotected sex, and begins to murder humans and dogs in her neighborhood.
The character Ginger is pretty revolutionary, if also campy and grotesque, but she’s also completely unsympathetic; through her werewolfism, her sexuality becomes aggressive and violent, and she loses any human qualities she once had. Crucially, throughout much of the film, Ginger remains girlish and sexually alluring; the viewer doesn’t see Ginger-as-Werewolf until the final moments of the film, right before she is killed by her younger sister. Yet again, a woman is denied her physical wolfness.
A particularly poignant female werewolf character can be found in issue 40 of Alan Moore’s 1985 comic series Swamp Thing. Phoebe, a woman struggling with a sexist husband named Roy and a raging case of PMS, is seen buying feminine pads in a grocery store. She returns home to a small gathering of friends, and after listening to one too many of Roy’s obnoxious and offensive comments, she painfully and juicily transforms from a beautiful woman into a huge, powerful werewolf. Her wolf form rips out of her body through her orifices, leaving a human skin behind, and she is poised to kill Roy.
She spares him but goes on a wild rampage, destroying an adult bookstore and a supermarket. Touching minds with Swamp Thing, she declares, “I am woman. I seek release from this stifling place that has been built for me,” and in the ultimate act of frustration and rage, impales herself on a knife display that cheerily advertises, “Here’s good news for housewives!” Dying, Phoebe again becomes a human woman and asks Swamp Thing to bring her body outdoors, where she can expire peacefully.