There's a trouble with them tiny guns.
The smaller they are the more they recoil. I mean DUH!
I have a friend that got his wife a S&W airweight .38 and loaded that dang thing with +P ammo.
She has shot it once.
Even I don't like pulling the trigger on that thing, and I like .44 magnums.
Now when I trained my wife to shoot, she started on a 7-1/2 inch Ruger Bisley .44 magnum. Loaded with seven grains of Unique, it was a pussycat.
We went down from there, looking fer a carry gun she liked. For many years she was rather recoil shy and didn't like much of my guns except the big 'ums, and she'd not carry those boat anchors around with her.
She could shoot a regular 1911 just fine, but sure as heck would never carry one.
After much hunting she settled on a Colt 1903 in .32 ACP.
Nice, easy shooting gun, also easy to carry. For many years this was her carry gun and it worked out fine.
Think about it - Light single action trigger pull, heavy by modern standards for a .32 auto, easy to rack the slide, bigger than most .32s today so it is easy to manipulate and grip yet very thin so it is easy to carry.
Overall a very simple and easy gun to carry and use.
Only problem is they ain't been made fer quite some time...
Another gun my wife likes and bought fer herself is the old Sauer 38H.
But it sure is hard to find anything similar on today's gun market!
My wife is less recoil shy now and carries a Keltec P32 in her purse and a Glock 17 out in the woods. The Glock 9mms are actually pretty durn sweet shooters if you can get the lady to try one, plus it is a heck of allot better for protection should she actually need to nail a bandit with one!
So JB, ya got a real conundrum here. Instead of finding the tiniest gun out there fer her, you need to find the biggest and heaviest she will actually carry. That gun chambered in a moderate caliber without magnum loads will serve her well, and maybe down the road she will develop skill, strength and interest to move onto something better.
Specific recommendations are difficult, because modern pocket guns are so durn small and light they ain't easy fer new shooters to use.
I can't recommended the Beretta Tomcat .32 at all, it has no extractor but rather relies upon residual pressure to eject the case instead, and I find the design ain't in any way reliable enough fer me or my wife. I giver her a gun I know it will ride in her purse fer months getting all dusty and it only gets cleaned by me now and then.
Ain't a problem, many guns can go most of their lives without cleaning and work just fine and dandy, like a Ruger revolver or a Glock.
I dunno, I once got an old S&W 4" M10 for a gal and she sure liked that.
It was a wedding present.
Another gal I got a Ruger MKII, not what we ordinarily consider a defensive gun but they sure do work and it turner her into a real shooter!
Not a bad idea at that, How 'bout this?-
Would she carry that?
22 ounces or so, easy as pie to rack that bolt, great light trigger pull, plenty easy to shoot and accurate, easy reloads with a spare magazine.
Even kinda sexy.
Certainly she would be better armed with this and learn to be a better shooter without developing bad habits than with a .38 snubbie she don't like to shoot or a tiny .22 revolver with a heavy trigger pull.