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.
A great lesson in listening.
Some years ago, I was seriously in the cattle business. I bought up a bunch of ground around my folk's place, had professional management, was into A.I., even embryo transfer, right there on the place. After my Dad passed, I was leasing the home place from my Mom. She was a fine Christian lady but had her own opinions about most stuff, including cattle farming. My people constantly had problems with her and I got so aggravated by all these goings on, that I asked an old time cattle man in our community to go lease her holdings. He went to see her and made the deal.
Later, I asked him how he did the deal so easily. His response, "I listened". Wow! We were constantly trying to tell her all sorts of stuff, but weren't listening. This wise, old gentleman sat there, listened to her, drank her coffee, ate her cookies and made the deal. She was pleased as she could be and they leased the place for many years.
Your approach brought all that back to mind. Quite a lesson to be learned by us all.
DF
