While the men were remiss and sinned in several episodes, the Israelite women followed the proper path. That was true in the case of the Golden Calf, and the same is true with regard to exhibiting love for the Land of Israel.

In that generation, the women would repair what the men would breach, as you find that Aaron said to the Israelite men who asked Aaron to fashion a god for them: “Remove the gold rings that are in the ears of your wives” (Exodus 32:2); but the women refused and protested to their husbands, as it is stated: “All the people removed the gold rings that were in their ears (Exodus 32:3),” but the women did not participate in the act of the Golden Calf. Likewise, in the case of the spies who slandered, it was the men who sinned…but the women were not with them in their counsel, as it is written just prior to the matter of the daughters of Tzelofhad: “As the Lord said of them: They will die in the wilderness. No man was left of them” (Numbers 26:65). No man was left, but the punishment for the sin of the spies did not apply to the women. Why? Because the men did not want to enter the land. But the women approached to request an inheritance in the land, as the verse states: “The daughters of Tzelofhad approached” (27:1). (Tanĥuma, Pinhas)