women are more easily manipulated through emotions

Women, on an instinctual level, know they are too weak to survive without their group/tribe. This makes a woman hypersensitive to the groups perception of her.

When she is shown the pic of the migrant child she makes a calculated decision about what behavior the group will see a "moral" or "good". In this case its might be feigning compassion. Because she thinks the group will disapprove of her if she says "so what, not my kid".