I agree the guy that gave her the gun was an idiot. But I see it all the time at the range. Fellow comes out and wants to teach his young bride to shoot. Brings his hunting rifle and hands it to her with rounds he plans on using for Grizzly. In other words the heaviest things he can buy, for a gun that is too big for her, in caliber, weight, and length of pull. She shoots it and gets the day lites knocked out of her, and sometime needs to go to the emergency room to fix a scope bite. She decides right then and there she wants nothing to do with hunting or shooting ever again. And unless she meets someone like my wife, they are ruined for life.
My wife is 4'11" and shoots a .35 Whelen. She is an NRA certified Shooting Instructor for Rifle, Shotgun, and Pistol. She has taken many of those gun shy women and turned them into shooters. The first thing she does is convince them that the person giving them the hunting rifle set up for a man was a macho idiot. With a room full of women, she does not have much trouble doing that.