I agree that the .22WMR is a better round than the 25 (rock would be better) but not necessarily the 32. The 22WMR develops about the same velocity as the 38sp, but has far less cross sectional density and thus less "stopping power."Women need educating on self defense. The 9mm or 38sp is far better than any 22WMR. Can be just as small and (ugh) "cute." The MOSSAD uses a .22LR for assassination because they take the mark right thru the EYE everytime. A 6mm rifle can and HAS dropped a Bull Elephant...if you get him in the eye...like the famous "Karamojo" Bell, the Great White Hunter of turn of the century Africa. When you're talking a "mouse gun" SHOT PLACEMENT is all.
Most men and women are not going to be able to maintain their cool in a hostile encounter of the potentially lethal kind to stay calm enough to go for the eyeball and be assured of hitting the target! Therefore, you need a caliber with enough cross sectional density and ability to expand to a larger caliber in the flesh penetration to produce the needed hydrostatic shock and drop the bad guy; even if the bullet strike isn't an instantly lethal area....like the eye. Or if the round hits soft tissue that may eventually prove fatal due to hydraulic failure ie bleedout, it still must be big enough to incapacitate instead of infuriate.
I used to say to folks....: "Look, if you shoot somebody with this little 22....and IF HE FINDS OUT ABOUT IT....He's gonna be very M-A-D."
You never sold a gun to me! :-D Smallest gun I've ever carried was a PPK/S in 9mm kurz (.380 Auto) in a Bianchi Scorpion shoulder holster, and only because my Combat Commander "printed" too badly under my summer suit coats. Rest of the time I carried it or the stainless Officer's Model. My boss, a Marine Reservist, walked into my office without knocking one day while I was shrugging into my jacket - his eyes sure popped. I laughed it off . . . "Hey, if YOU had to park behind the Union Mission instead of in the partners' spaces under the building, you'd be carrying one too." The federal marshals at the courthouse when I was working my very first "real" job for a judge also thought it was extremely funny. For years after I quit working at the courthouse and was just going down there to file papers and try cases, the guys on the gate would ask, "Hey, got your cannon, honey?" ". . . not since I don't have to park under the Spring Street viaduct any more . . . " Speaking of which, I was talking to a friend on Wednesday, her husband got mugged under the Spring Street viaduct. (They are country club Republicans and wouldn't know which end of a gun was the naughty one.) So nothing in West Side downtown Atlanta has really changed in 20 years . . .
But I think that the expectation is that women want a "cute" gun. Women also tend to fear not the recoil but the noise. Probably due to lack of early training, which I had plenty of from my dad and all his huntin'-and-fishin' friends . . . and my kids are certainly getting it too. My daughter will shoot anything I own including the .41 Mag, the .45 Long Colt, my hubby's FN and my .303 Long Branch sniper rifle (she's 15), she's a big tall girl (takes after my husband.) My son is still small and skinny at 12 (he's a little guy like my side of the family) and he prefers the Ruger 10/22 still, which is fine.