RE: I am confused what the lefties think is the correct response to an attack on a female.
Read the tweets to her response. It is this — TEACH MEN NOT TO RAPE.
Let’s also teach terrorists not to kill while we’re at it...
I think you’re overlooking the real significance of “teach men not to rape” and of the whole leftist reaction to Ms. Sanchez remarks.
She gave a sensible response to the question with “sexual assault” given its normal English denotation. The left uses “rape” and “sexual assault” in elastic Newspeak versions which always carry the connotation of the English word or phrase, but with fluid denotations, allowing them to apply the condemnation properly applied to what the English word denotes to other things as suits their political expediency. (Think of the way they use “racist”.)
Misreading body language and kissing a woman who does not want to be kissed is no longer the “stolen kiss” of romantic poetry, but (when it suits the left) “sexual assault”. The twentieth century practice of college practice of women taking a bit of “dutch courage” before giving away their virtue now becomes the basis of a claim of “rape” against the young man who takes up the offer (should the woman regret it in the morning). Neither of these instances of the Newspeak “sexual assault” is reasonably addressed by having an advanced level in a martial art, and neither of them is what normal, sane, English-speakers mean by “sexual assault”.