Large scale participation of women was an important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement. During the Salt March, thousands of women came out of their homes to listen to the speeches of Gandhi. women participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail. While women of high caste families participated from urban areas, in rural areas they came from rich peasant households. But this did not bring about any radical changes in the positin of women. For a long time the Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position of authority within the organisation.