As historians such as E. H. Carr and Hayden White argue, historical inquiry is subjective and heavily dependent on what the inquirer chooses to look for and focus on, which shapes the historical knowledge "produced". Put simply, if you're looking to learn about the pre-industrial history of East Asian economies, you'll probably be searching for sources relating to pre-industrial East Asian economies, be writing historical publications about pre-industrial East Asian economies, and so on.

Why does this matter? Because much of our historical knowledge and primary historical sources are written by elite men, often heteronormative and cisnormative especially in the Western/European setting. This is generally because such people had the ability to do so which others did not: namely fluent literacy from good education, and influence and freedom in spreading their views due to social/political/economic power. They are mostly going to care about and write about topics relevant to themselves: your noble lord will concern himself more on collecting land taxes and managing military forces than on textile weaving methods used by peasant women. Thus in many historical fields, we often end up with huge amounts of historical knowledge relating to this demographic, and having lots of primary sources focusing on them then means lots of secondary and tertiary sources also focusing on them.

Studying and evaluating history with deliberately different inquiries and approaches will then help us consider new perspectives, "forgotten" sources, and unique arguments. That diversity of knowledge in turn contributes to a "better understanding" of history, in the sense that history is once again a rather subjective field which relies on an understanding of how, how far, and why our historical knowledge is subjective.

For example, choosing to look at women's household work in agarian societies can direct us to searching for sources relating to that, especially if from and regarding women. On top of written texts that may be rather scarce, considering unconventional methods could provide extra insight, such as archeological discoveries of weaving tools in female graves. We can then hopefully put together a fresh narrative and learn new information: perhaps (as a hypothetical example) that certain aspects of postharvest processing were treated as household work, but varied across communities and over time!

Alternatively, we can try new readings of existing sources: perhaps to consider potential references to homosexuality in artworks and cultural artefacts, which may introduce contrasting viewpoints to common perceptions of the society in question. Could a "confusing" poem actually make sense if treated as a parody of conventional marriage expectations?

Finally, we can still gain a better understanding of the context of those elite men's sources. What does their portrayal and referencing of women and "effeminate" men tell us about their sociocultural values and biases? Why are female deities and elites treated differently than female peasants and slaves?

All these matter as they will shape and affect how we evaluate and handle such knowledge. It's also important to keep in mind that the influence of gender in the study of history can have big impacts in our present day: gender issues continue to affect lots of real people, and awareness about its past supports its modern prevalence and movements. Pop culture can also be quite an accessible medium to practice such skills: how do early Disney animations and Sean Connery's James Bond films depict women, and what can they suggest about expectations by their film creators?

For more in-depth reading, you can search for all kinds of gender historians and gender history publications. I think Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis by Joan Scott and The Growth of Gender and Women's History by Lyndal Roper are good starts!

Edit: grammar