@MICHAEL479, If she finds the heavier .357 revolver easier to hold, be sure to have her fire .38 Spl and not .357. Too many people I know or have seen online complain about the recoil of a .357. I shoot .38s through my Ruger SP101 as a practice/target round and they hardly have any recoil. .38 +P is better for protection and I don’t feel much difference between them and the ordinary .38 Spl rounds.
If she favors a semi-auto, you might want to have her look at the S&W EZ series, where the EZ means it’s easy to rack the slide. It comes in .380 and more recently a 9mm version with, according to one reviewer, hardly any recoil due to the way the top of the slide lines up with the top of the arm. I’ve not tried either of these, but the difficulty of wracking the slide is just below the recoil complaints about semi-autos.