The onus is somewhat shared. In recent times there has been a massive over correction leading to something akin to the position that the woman can never be wrong. Getting assaulted is bad but if that was preceded by taunting and instigation by the “victim” they share some segment of the blame.
If you challenge a violent criminal like this, you leave him no choice but to shoot you. That goes double if you do it in front of his peers. Either he rises up to your challenge or he loses respect. He's dead if people don't respect him.
People do all sorts of things when they're placed in stressful situations. It's easy to end up making this sort of challenge when trying to drive away an aggressor. Insults, challenges, threatening violence, threatening to call the cops. Sometimes a violent person starts to back down and leave but the victim just has to get that last insult in to teach him a lesson.
Like all people, women are prone to this. Verbal violence can and will escalate a dangerous situation. Sometimes women initiate physical violence against much stronger men: they slap him.
Having worked in the nightclub biz for ~20 years - I have seen situations like these occur many times.
It truly amazes me how much people will push others to commit violence - often doing X or Y multiple times - even when others are trying to quash it - and sometimes it seemed that it just intensified when people were stopped / held back, or the initial situation was otherwise 'stopped'.
Yeah, I keep thinking I should write a book on it - especially now that many of the places have been gentrified out of existence - which could also be an interesting part of the book.
If the Oprah show was still a thing it would make for a couple of good segments for sure.
