Issues ranged from “period leave” in Korea to women’s disenchantment with engineering in Argentina during a YWCA panel discussion Wednesday focusing on women in the workplace.

Women from Argentina, Romania, Korea and Taiwan gathered to compare and contrast working conditions in their countries.

All the panelists agreed differences exist between male and female employment.

The topic of male and female dominated career areas drew attention from the panel members.

Joyce Hwang, YWCA campus program coordinator from Korea, said it’s rare for males to enter secretarial or teaching positions in Korea.

The large proportion of female teachers in the country concerns Korean parents because they believe, as a result, their sons “become more feminine,” Hwang said.

Natalia Juan Miguez, graduate student in industrial relations from Argentina, said male domination of fields such as engineering and construction in her home country indicate a lack of female interest in such careers rather than discrimination.

Different male and female choices are “connected with likes and dislikes.”

Amy Bix, associate professor in history, spoke about the gender gap between males and females in the United States.

“It’s fun to see what’s changing,” she said.

Bix said in the 1950s, less than one percent of engineering students were women.

Today, women make up 18 percent of Iowa State’s College of Engineering.

In contrast to the past, American women today have the opportunity to participate in other traditionally male careers, Bix said. For example, 90 percent of Americans today would be willing to vote for a female presidential candidate.

Women are just beginning to enter the workforce in Taiwan, said Shu-Yin Lin, a graduate student in food service and lodging management from the country. Currently, women in Taiwan occupy low-skill jobs.

“Society is changing,” Lin said.

Conditions have not seen dramatic changes in her native Ukraine, said Olena Zakharenko, graduate student in business administration.

Women traditionally take care of their children, which doesn’t give them much opportunity to be as successful in a career, she said.

Workplace consideration of women’s health also differed between the panelists countries.

In Ukraine, a woman’s position is kept open for her after the birth of a child, Zakharenko said, and maternity leave is paid, although the money is “not much.”

Lin said Korean women are given a day each month of “paid period leave.”