I was watching The Vampire Diaries and realized there is a genre out there that would be almost impossible to write: feminist vampire romance.
Vampire romances are one-sided power struggles that almost never empower the women involved. And, if they do, they can barely be called feminist in view.
The Twilight series is about a vampire more than 100 years older than his love interest. He stalks her, lies and impersonates the living to insert himself into her life, breaks into her house to watch her sleep, and is obsessed with "protecting" her.
The Vampire Diaries is a little better. It's about a vampire more than 100 years older than his love interest. He stalks her, lies and impersonates the living to insert himself into her life, and is obsessed with "protecting" her. Except, he has a cool, inhumane brother who adds depth to the show. The problem is, his inhumane brother is more than 100 years older than the same love interest. He stalks her, lies and impersonates the living to insert himself into her life, breaks into her house to watch her sleep, and is obsessed with "protecting" her.
The Lost Boys is about a band of vampires. The head vampire is more than 100 years older than his love interest. He lies and impersonates the living to insert himself into her life and that of her family. The male lead falls head over heels for a female vampire, but she is largely controlled by her pack and is in charge of raising a child who is in the process of becoming a vampire (Which doesn't really make sense besides asserting her role as a "mother," does it?).
Anne Rice does a little better in her books, but her female vampires aren't as fully formed as their male counterparts. Louis and Lestat show up in book after book, taking center stage, with an almost entirely male cast filling in around them.
There's a whole sub-genre of lesbian vampire fiction, but most of it conforms to male fantasies. Most of straight vampire fiction also conforms to male fantasies, because it is about an older man finding a beautiful young woman and using supernatural powers (or showing how good and kind the vampire is by not using supernatural powers) to entice her.
True Blood is more of the same, but I am impressed that there are smaller stories about gay vampires and unattractive vampires and depressed vampires that go against the grain. The series also delves into the deceptions the vampires use to make themselves seem less threatening to the mortal world.
It would be hard to write a feminist vampire story for many of the same reasons it would be hard to write feminist erotica story. If you write the story of a male vampire falling in love with a regular woman, you're probably still going to be perpetuating binary gender roles. The male vampire will be the woman's savior. He will have to control his inner animal to keep her safe. You can make a sensitive vampire who is comfortable with his inner woman, thanks to centuries of unlife, but that's the same as the sensitive male artist who women seem to fall in love with in feminist erotica stories.
If you have a female vampire fall in love with a man, you start to tread on thin ice. If the woman is hot, then of course a hot-blooded man would want her. If she's not, is she using some sort of supernatural compulsion to make him want her? Theoretically, she's the older woman. Does the man want her because she's the eternal MILF? Does he want the power that would come with being a vampire?
The only options for feminist vampire romance stories I see is to subvert the genre or write a love story about a dying mortal and the vampire who has stood by them as they grow old, never leaving their side even through hot flashes or erectile dysfunction disorder or gray hairs and broken hips. To not even use flashbacks to try to explain that the vampire really sees their love as they were when they were young and beautiful and just show the vampire changing their loved one's Depends and feeding them food by the pureed spoonful.
