My youngest daughter never showed much interest in shooting despite my best efforts. One day I did get her to do a lot of shooting with a daisy target air rifle. I can't recall the model but it was the one which cocked with a long under barrel lever which was made of some synthetic material. Before the end of the day, I had her shooting very well, better than most people who have shot all their lives.
On the other hand, I taught skeet shooting at a Southern University for two years. The boys were generally better shots. Some of the girls did just fine but some really were bothered by the recoil. We almost always had a Japanese girl in most classes. Some of them were really petite and I noticed the recoil really did bother them. (the school guns were 870 Remingtons). I tried my best to help them, such as keeping the butt firmly against the shoulder, but there was not a lot I could do.
I will share one personal experience which really surprised me. One day a bunch of my nieces and nephews asked me to take them down to the creek on their Grandpa's land and do some shooting. One of the girls was a runner up in the Miss Kentucky pageant. She is built a lot like her Grandma, which is tall and slender but fairly strong.
After we had shot the .22's for awhile I got out a Ruger Super Blackhawk. A few of the boys shot it, then the niece asked if she could. I told her it was probably not a good idea. She insisted so I let her try. To my surprise, she fired it six times with no problem at all. I do think the fact that she was wearing eye and ear protection made a difference. Sometimes the recoil is not as bad as the blast.
I start every new shooter off with the nastiest gun I can get my hands on that fits the shooter. For most women, that is a .4x caliber light-weight compact pistol. When they shoot for the first time, they are always a bit nervous regardless and have no concept of "recoil" anyway. Recoil effects are almost purely psychological, and so I mask the psychological aspect of large calibers behind the general nervousness about shooting guns for the very first time. After the first session at the range, not only are they comfortable shooting guns in general but they are comfortable shooting just about any pistol you can hand them. Quite frankly, they rarely notice the recoil past the first shot because I have them concentrating on shooting.
I've trained many slight women in the 100-120 lb range (mostly Asians), and they take to big calibers as easily as any man. Recoil just isn't that big of a factor if you are shooting correctly. The biggest problem I've seen women have with big calibers is that the grips on the guns are often too large for their hands. But as a general rule when training people, I try and squash all the unreasonable apprehension at one go, often before they can name the fear, so that they can get on with more important aspects of shooting.