I read an interesting take on this (on some physic's blog, oddly enough, I think) that it's actually at least partially beneficial because, while some misbehaviour by male athletes is attributed to testosterone and even celebrated (ice hockey fights etc), women in sports are still expected to be cute pony-tail wearing sweethearts who never do anything impolite or aggressive.
The writer was pointing out that, at the top levels, women's sports are just as competitive and aggressive as men's and that they deserve attention as athletes, and that this player, by showing that *gasp* women sometimes play dirty, was doing everyone a favour by at least bringing it out in the open. As a girl who played a number of sports, I thought it was an interesting take.
I'd also have to say that women's soccer has always been fairly...physical. I have very faint scars down the back on my legs from a girl deliberately scraping me with her shoes, and hair pulling and shirt grabbing (and illegal slide tackling) was not all that unusual.