What an uninformed, uneducated and untrained individual likes is largely irrelevant. They have no knowledge or experience in which to make any kind of informed decision. What they prefer in the context of shooting after one range visit means little in the context of what would be an effective self-defense choice.
Most gun guys tend to be "shooters", whose training is limited to static range shooting, who want to get people involved in range shooting in the same manner they do it and approach personal defense from this perspective, but shooting and armed self-defense(fighting with a gun) are two very different things, just like there is a big difference between certain martial arts and practical unarmed self-defense. If a woman is solely interested in learning effective H2H methods and rape prevention skills, she is going to have to undertake training that is relatively strenuous and involves some compromising positions. The local mcdojo will likely be more fun, easier to learn and perhaps not involve participating in training methods utilizing techniques which many find uncomfortable, but she won't likely learn skills that would be applicable in an actual assault and instead simply gain a false sense of confidence.
I've lost count of the number of people who my mother said have recommended she get a .22, but the reasons they give for their suggestion are always isolated to target shooting. My mother is a pragmatic, and is only interested in choosing the most effective tool for the most likely realistic scenarios she will face as an armed civilian and her weapon of choice is an S&W 442. She chose this weapon after thoroughly educating herself by studying the competing arguments for and against various weapons, considering the most likely potential threats and scenarios she would encounter as an armed civilian, her likely response and how each weapon would be used and perform in them and came to the conclusion that the supposed negatives of the .38 snub really only applied to target shooting and it's strengths were likely to be beneficial in the most probable actual personal defense situations. Shooting, being a shooter, the shooting or gun community had nothing to do with it as it shouldn't.
A .22 is no doubt better than nothing, but I would never recommend one for personal defense unless there was some sort of severe physical impairment. No way would I ever want my wife or mother to depend on one in matters of life and death.
