Jazmina Cininas
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Fur girls and wolf women
Fur, hair and subversive female lycanthropy
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This chapter provides an overview of the relationship between the hairy woman and the female werewolf figure and the ongoing complexities of the social attitudes towards fur/body hair and the feminine. Demonstrating the ambivalence towards hirsute individuals, the hairy female body has also been viewed as a manifestation of animalistic lust since at least the Renaissance. Hairy individuals continue to feature in evolutionary debates. Some biologists propose that congenital generalised hypertrichosis (CGH) 'is a manifestation of a genetic atavism'. Lupine body hair visibly manifests the 'mobile, elastic fictions or borders' between humans and animals; however, this perceived proximity to the animal is not necessarily indicative of compromised humanity or a sub-human status. Hirsute individuals are being distanced from their simian heritage as 'missing links' and increasingly attributed lupine lineages through conflation with the werewolf, particularly on screen.

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She-wolf

A cultural history of female werewolves

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