Circe isn’t misunderstood—she’s perfectly understood; she turns men into pigs because men see her body as their property and try to claim her with their strength. She needs no narrative overhaul for us to understand her actions; she needs no revamp to be sympathetic. The system is, and always has been, designed to quite literally fuck her over.
The gods do it, and have always done it, and won't stop until someone with power equal to their own challenges their depravity. It is always a game or all a joke to those who hold the power. But not so to the ones “so very bad at getting away.” This is a direct indictment of a system and has the overarching and amorphous quality of a parable. Which is good, because that's what myths are. Circe is jerked around by a society that lets those in power say and do things that are fundamentally revolting; myths represent humans trying to understand the world, and this particular understanding is relevant now more than ever.