Although I don't mind singing from a woman's point of view (or a villain's point of view or a murderer's point of view), I also see nothing wrong with changing the song as you suggested, provided the story doesn't suffer.
Sometimes the song suffers with a gender change as in The House Of The Rising Sun. It seems much more tragic for a woman to be forced into a life of prostitution than for a man to be forced into a life of paying for sex. I was disappointed in The Animals' version of Rising Sun for this reason.