the Curse of the Werewolf - werewolf as the other

It seems that the werewolf could be a portrayal of xenophobia, at least, fear of people who are different from one's self. For example, fear of foreigners, women, people of different races and people from other classes.
In the Curse of the Werewolf, pg. 47, the werewolf in English literature is often portrayed as a continental European, often with an accent. This of course recalls the 'foreign' Count Dracula. The continental European is someone who is not utterly foreign to an Englishman, someone who looks Caucasian, and can speak at least a little English, but is still 'unknown' and 'mysterious.' Who knows what these strange foreigners are actually like?
In addition, the female werewolf became more well known in the later half of the 1800s, in timing with the suffragette movement, or the "New Woman" movement. Amusingly, the author quotes Werwolves here:

"Apparently women are more desirous of becoming werwolves than men, more women than men having acquired the property of werwolfery through their own act. In the case of women candidates for this evil property, the inspiring motive is almost always one of revenge, sometimes on a faithless lover, but more often on another woman; and when once women metamorphose thus, their craving for human flesh is simply insatiable - in fact, they are far more cruel and daring, and much more to be dreaded, than male werwolves."

These "new women" were unknown and un-understandable, who knows whether they might turn to cannibalism even! The Curse of the Werewolf goes on to say that the werewolf could also be a symbol of distrust of the poor and lower classes, and indeed many of the folk tales feature urban heroes traveling through a poor country town where they must stay the night with the 'town's people.' Of course werewolves can also be symbolic of people of other races and cultures, how many people of the world were dismissed by whites as "savages" and "animals?" It doesn't seem a large leap for one to write fiction in which they really are animals.

Werwolves - final thoughts

Something I discovered while studying werewolves, was how similar this idea is in some ways to that of witches. It might be thought of as the male counterpart, though the actual creature is very different. Supposedly witches were choosing to be them, while werewolves have no choice. In both cases people were murdered for 'being' them, and it was used as a tool of persecution. I wonder what it says that the usually female 'witch' has been thought to have chosen her supernatural affliction while the man was simply cursed. In the highly patriarchal world that persecuted these people, was it thought that men were more helpless of any problem because they were more understandable by other men, while women must have been calculating because their 'motives' were not understood. Of course plenty of women were murdered for being werewolves despite that not being very accurate to the legend.
If the 'curse' of being a werewolf has to do with sexual aggression, no wonder it is applied to men more in fiction, but women could be accused of it in real life. Most of the tales we read now are adaptations of stories that were told by word of mouth, so they have been adapted to modern audiences. The author would change details that might be too strange, such as a female werewolf. People would find it hard to accept a female sexual predator, not only because it happens less often in real life, but common thought still does not think that women have much of any sexual desire, let alone enough to become a 'monster' over it.
So why did women get accused of being werewolves in real life then? In mob behavior people are somehow more able to believe things they would find impossible in fiction, particularly if it matches a belief they already have, like not liking the person accused. Witches were often accused of having sex with demons or the devil himself, any aberrant sexual behavior in women, (or behavior at all), was not acceptable, so it was a good way to get someone burned at the stake.
Because my books of physiognomy lateness at the library have delayed that topic, I am going to read more about werewolves by briefly reading over a book called the Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within by Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray. (Available here on Google Books.)

Werwolves - real people

A large portion of Werwolves is devoted to 'real life cases' in various locations. It seems safe to assume that very little of this is based in fact. However, there were supposed 'werewolves' of history.
A very extensive page on werewolves.
There is a sad story that is not told behind the real people killed for being werewolves. People admitting to eating children, and supposedly with wounds that matched an attacked wolf. It's impossible to know how much of this is made up, but it's easy to imagine someone creating an elaborate story designed to rid themselves of someone they didn't like. Many of these people were women, (which seems to go against the folk tale tradition,) children, 'feeble minded,' and elderly. Perhaps children were actually killed by wild animals, and the blame had to be put on someone to make the village feel that justice was served.
This seems further evidence that the story was created to explain behavior that was not understood at the time. It's also very similar to the Salem witch trials and other supernatural related persecution of these time periods.