Female vampires

VAMPIRE QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "The reason good women like me and flock to my pictures is that there is a little bit of vampire instinct in every woman."
"I have the face of a vampire, but the heart of a feminist."
--Theda Bara

Well, these are actually two quotes of the week, both of them by American silent-film star, Theda Bara. Legend has it that her femme fatale role in the 1915 film A Fool There Was was the source of the word "vamp."

While Bara's "vampire instinct" quote probably refers more to a seductress instinct, it brings up the interesting point of female vampirism. Lady vampires are such an underrated enigma in our modern culture. Famous male vampire characters such as Dracula, Nosferatu, and Lestat withstand the test of time, but the women tend to fall in the shadows, showing up here and there as tempting seductresses, but none of them achieving quite the same fame as their male counterparts. Is it because no one has yet created a female vampire strong enough and memorable enough to make her mark in cultural history? Or does it have something to do with the way we as the consumers of culture like to view our vampires?

Here are some websites that offer some interesting facts about female vampires in history, legend, film, and literature:

http://altvampyres.com/femalesf.html
http://members.fortunecity.com/marissa21/bloodmoon/vampire.htm