This is by design! The Dora Milaje are partly modeled after the Mino women fighters of the Dahomey Kingdom (colonizers called them the Dahomey Amazons) in what's now Benin. The Mino were the fiercest warriors you can imagine. Their final initiation into the force required... https://twitter.com/ashlylorraine/status/1299886390746865664
...disemboweling an enemy. They were utterly fearless. The colonizers were terrified of the Mino, some of whom, even after they were formally disbanded under colonial rule, continued to assassinate French colonial officers.
The way Black Panther portrays the Dora Milaje obviously lines up with this aspect of the Mino, who, btw, also wore red uniforms. Moreover, when a Mino warrior was fully trained, she was seen more as a man than a woman. Technically they were all married to the king, but...
Mino stayed virgins & men were not allowed to touch them. They were not to be objects of sexual desire. It's a kind of gender fluidity before we had a term for it. There are echoes of this with the Dora Milaje, although they are allowed to marry.
For example, in the casino scene, Okoye complains about having to wear the trappings of femininity, especially her wig. She's uncomfortable with it, & when the mayhem starts, Okoye throws off the wig as fast as she can. She's a warrior, not an object for the male gaze.
There are SO many little things like this in Black Panther. If you want to learn more about the Dahomey Mino, this is a fantastic article about them: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/
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