This is way more of a complicated a situation then I think many men are willing to give it. I feel bad for Johnson. To be clear he screwed up bad and he should not have hit her. And he is now paying a big price. I know this is not the PC take nor the common take, but the video for me, makes me more sympathetic to him than I was before.
Almost all men can recognize that in a perfect vacuum, it is never right to hit a woman unless there are some serious extenuating circumstances (and a drunk loon at a bar initiating a fight with you is not extenuating enough). For most men, this is an extremely easy principal to adhere to. As I am sure the other male posters here can attest, this is one value we really don't have to "work" at.
But for a small percentage of men, for some reason, they think it is ok (often after consuming alcohol or drugs) to hit a woman. But the thing is, when these men hit/assault members of the fairer sex, they are almost always are in a domestic violence situation. And since domestic violence involves either a lover or family member, the act is truly unforgivable because the man knows the woman he is assaulting. He knows who they are, why they are mad, and should know how to diffuse it or how to walk away without knocking her out in an elevator. The act almost has a premeditated feel to it.
This however not that case in this event where two strangers collided over literally the same square foot. In this case, Johnson got caught up in a 10 second escalation with a woman who really overreacted and escalated the entire event and made a poor decision to strike back. This to me makes it complicated to judge him so quickly or harshly. We can all say we would never hurt or hit a woman and as I said above, it is a pretty easy core value to live by. But we also have never been drunk and been verbally and physically assaulted an instant by an unknown woman either. I have watched the video a dozen times. It is fascinating. There was no time to diffuse the situation. Sadly, neither had friends there that could help diffuse it either. She just blows up. If you watch he gets wedged between a larger girl and the angry girl and finds himself in that no mans land of losing balance (he actually grabs the bar to prevent from almost falling). Angry girl makes no effort to give him space and I swear intentionally gives no inch like an NBA center boxing out her space. Finally, something has to give and the lesser sized girl gets moved a bit as he pops into the space. And in an instant she is clearly spewing angry words and most likely physical threats, holding her hand up to punch (not for a second is she pointing). He grabs her balled fist punching arm and says one thing and the girl then she tries to knee him in the groin and takes a swing at him, connecting in some fashion. This all happens in like 4 seconds. And Johnson then makes the wrong split second choice and punches her back. I think for many men like myself who have been never hit a woman and done so with little effort, this situation may be a bigger test than we realize. If I take an honest look and imagine a buzzed or drunk college age me having this woman do the exact same thing to me at a bar with zero warning, I would like to say I would have walked away. But, I am not sure I would not have swung back, and regretted it instantly. The whole think was so fast, it was almost a reflexive action.
Last evening on ESPN Radio's Jorge Sedano had a good take on it I though . Basically remind your sons it is never ok to strike a woman. You will never ever win that fight. But tell your daughters it is never ok to bow up to a man in public and act physically hostile and strike them or you may end up getting punched, even if you are a woman.
