While she does get some credit it's not like she started wacking the guy with her purse, she screamed and told him to get out of her car. and the guy panicked and ran. Not much different than most women from Algiers would do
That was mostly a joke and certainly not intended to be serious.
But as you say, not much different from what the average person would do. Which was kind of the point. She's not as divorced from the world we live in as some think. She's still subject to the same bad streets, non-functional pumping stations, and lack of infrastructure that we are. And I'm sure she wants to see the Saints win if for no other reason it's fun for her at the games and at the parties she goes to.
But there is this clear misogynist undertone to all the criticism about Gayle Benson that boils down to "she's a woman, she can't possibly know about or care about football" and she just got the money because she found a sugar daddy when he was old. But it's guised as "she's an interior decorator".
And the idea that a woman can't possibly know about or care about football is demonstrably not true about many women, especially southern women.