Women are hit harder overall by sentencing for the same crimes in certain cases, so it's not as straightforward as women being treated more leniently by the justice system.
It may be that there are children involved here as well which factors into the sentencing. I'm not saying it is, or that this is necessarily right, but you can see that the removal of both parents for what is, in essence, a financial crime might not be the best outcome in the longer term.