I didn’t see it that way. And the fact is that women were forced into roles in the factories, and that certainly did have an impact on society as a whole.
Burns proved there was a market for expensive, long series historical documentaries. After his Civil War series, various channels tried to copy his success.
Burns also invented the concept of dramatizing historical documentaries, by casting actors to read for the parts of historical figures (reading from their letters, diaries, etc.)
Until Burns, documentaries were either talking heads (which Burns also used), or the "verite" style where a filmmaker followed his subject without commenting on events.
Soldier Girl was a very good verite documentary that came out in the early 1980s. Siskel & Ebert loved it. I saw it on PBS. The documentary followed women training in an Army boot camp, which was still a new thing when the film was made.