And have her hate firing it because of the undamped recoil, plus not be able to properly control a heavy revolver?
I’d say a Beretta with a tip-up barrel or even the old Browning High Power - you can rack the slide on a BHP by putting the dust cover against a wall and leaning on it.
In the classes that I’ve taught for self defense, I have always ALWAYS stated that shot placement will beat a bigger less controlled gun every time. As a general rule, women listen, men don’t - at least not until they have tried something smaller like a 9 mm or .45 vs the .44 mag or .50AE they thought they could handle. I’ve seen a grandma with a .22LR pistol that could decide which eyeball she wanted to take out at 10 meters .... it’s quite scary to watch her actually.
I was once asked how can I tell if someone has too much pistol. It is really a simple exercise. Set your target at 7 to 10 yards. Fire 5 rounds in under 10 seconds. If the shot group is bigger than your pistol ... you have too much pistol and not enough control. You can fix that practice or getting a smaller gun / load. But always practice practice practice.
Or the way it was put to me ... never HOPE you hit your target, KNOW if you did.
FWIW --
Most of the inexperienced shooters I've dealt with have done better with a revolver:
1. It's a lot easier to confirm there is/is not a loaded round in the weapon (sometimes that whole 'slide slamming forward' thing seems to raise doubt for some folks). Inexperienced shooters -- especially women, it seems -- shy away from handling a gun if they aren't confident they know it is or isn't loaded. Any new shooter will get better if they will pick up the weapon on their own and practice handling it. That is more likely to happen if he or she feels comfortable with making sure it is not loaded without assistance.
2. No extra pieces required (we call them 'magazines') for the gun to work.
3. All the gun's movement happens BEFORE you pull the trigger, so the gun isn't cycling, brass flying, etc. during a time when the only thing an inexperienced shooter wants to worry about is NOT dropping the firearm.
4. Recoil, schmecoil. A semi-auto pistol soaks up some, but not very much, recoil. Decent grips make up for that. Some people make the mistake of getting a pistol too small/light with the idea that it will be easier for a woman to shoot (minimum barrel length of 4", 6 is better, and steel frame only).
Snub nosed 38 with a hidden hammer.
Then she can’t break her thumb off when she gets it in front of the ejection process of a semi. Can’t screw up the hammer. Just point and pull the trigger.
I've owned two of them, can't say I honestly care for the gun. The controls are too small to be effective, especially in an emergency such as the prospective buyer describes. If his wife is 71 and has trouble racking the slide on their existing gun, she will have trouble releasing the safety and / or the slide release on a Hi-Power.
I would suggest a Ruger 10-22 with four 30 round magazines, loaded with CCI Stingers. They're still fairly politically correct, easy to operate, easy to shoot, and while a .22, even with Stingers, isn't an elephant killer, you've got enough fire power to make anybody but King Kong reconsider. IMHO