When I was taking my carry permit class, the one woman in the class had an alloy .357 snubbie that she bought on some idiot's recommendation. After the 50 rounds that the shooting portion required she had a red and blue bruise on her hand. She left determined to switch guns ASAP. Incidentally, she did shoot better than a lot of the guys, two of whom had to re-do the test, because they shot patterns instead of groups.
My wife picked her own gun. Unfortunately it was my gun she picked. I bought a very nice 3" Model 36 Smith, showed it to her in a "hey, look, isn't this neat" context, and she looked at it and said "I'll take it".
