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My personal experience with sisters and nieces is that they prefer revolvers. Not the Airweights, but a nice medium frame (Smith K-Frame .38 special is perfect). Simple, no jams, nothing to rack, and very little recoil. They particularly like shooting it single action. Be wary if you start her on a lightweight "carry" type gun like a Ruger LCP or a Bodyguard.

They also like "pretty" .22's like a Ruger Mark III. They have to learn to rack the slide, but it's easy to do.

Definitely go over the 4 rules -- especially the "keep the finger off the trigger until ..." one. I also told them it was okay to go "Eek" once (usually after their first shot).

Expect them to take the first shot, then lower the weapon until it's pointing to the table or stand in front of them while their finger is still on the trigger in order to take a close look at their target. Gently point this out when it happens.

I always let my group shoot one of my 1911's before they quit -- by this time, they were used to the .38 special recoil. They were surprised to find the .45 recoil not that much different and it removed a lot of the fear of big guns (even though they still couldn't rack the slide)