Hellfire, Dirtfarmer, I learned this the HARD way. I trained a lot of gals "my" way before I realized how badly it was failing. The first one who really got me to wise up was my ex-wife, who was simply too stubborn to let me teach her anything... so I watched one of my compadres basically do just as I've outlined, and she ended up picking a 38 snubbie as her personal protection firearm.
Based on that experience, when my younger daughter decided she wanted a PP handgun (she was already pretty solid with a .22 revolver and a .22 semiauto, not to mention long arms) I took her out with a bunch of revolvers and fully expected her to pick one or another of 'em. Nope. Before the day was done we had to go back to town to get other guns from my safe and from the gunsafes of two of my buddies. She settled on a S&W 6906.
I could go on and on. I've had the privilege of helping several fairly notable ladies in selecting their PP handguns, including a couple of bestselling authors FWIW, and they've all picked handguns I would not have predicted. All of 'em are good shooters with their pieces, too.
Like all things with women and horses, your best chance of success is not to try to force 'em into your idea of what they should do, but offer them some good choices and and let 'em have their heads.
