Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson has set out her opposition to calls to introduce a quota to ensure a 50/50 gender balance in Holyrood.
Ms Davidson said quotas are a crude tool that by definition could not deliver true equality.
A cross-party group of MSPs, including from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, is pushi ng for the move as part of calls for new powers to be awarded to Holyrood.
The Tory MSP said: "I have always been against gender quotas, whether for business, politics or academia. They are a crude tool which, by their very nature, cannot deliver true equality.
"Many women count themselves out before they ever get to a selection or recruitment process and we have to address why that is.
"There are much better ways to reduce under-representation, such as through mentoring and support.
"For many people, women who achieve their position through a quota system will always - and often quite unfairly - have a question mark hanging over them."
By November the leaders of the three largest parties at Holyrood are all expected to be female. As the favourite to succeed Alex Salmond at the top of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon is tipped to join Labour's Johann Lamont and Ms Davidson at the top.
The cross-party group is pushing for the gender issue to be addressed in all parties manifestos in the run-up to the 2016 Holyrood elections.
Among the Scottish Conservatives' MSP group 40 per cent are women. As leader, Ms Davidson has established the post of vice-chairman for women, designed to help identify and support potential female candidates.
Ms Davidson's comments came as she hit out at criticism of her position in a police investigation into allegations pro-Union campaigners breached electoral secrecy laws by counting postal votes ahead of referendum polling day. In the wake of assertions on micro-blogging site Twitter, she defended her part in the inquiry, calling for one tweet to be retracted. It is understood it was.
The development comes as the Crown Office instructed a police investigation into alleged breaches. It followed an assessment of complaints surrounding comments made by Ms Davidson who said on a televised discussion that postal vote "tallies" were being taken in the weeks before the referendum ballot closed at 10pm on September 18.
Police made initial telephone contact with Ms Davidson on Friday, a week after the force began an assessment of complaints. Party sources said there was "no suggestion she was accused of doing anything wrong".
On televised coverage of the referendum results, 45 minutes after the polls closed, Ms Davidson said the No camp had been "incredibly encouraged" by the results of a "sample opening" of the postal ballot she said had taken place around the country over the few weeks prior to the poll. Complaints over her account of the postal vote "tallies" raised concerns the information may have helped inform the No campaign's decision to issue the "vow" of more powers for Scotland from the three main party leaders.
In what was believed to be a reference to The Herald she added in another tweet: "As the piece makes clear there is no suggestion I have done anything wrong."
The Electoral Commission passed complaints to the police after making an initial assessment over whether there was any case to answer. Political agents and campaigners are allowed to oversee the postal vote opening sessions, where checks are made to verify the signatures and dates of birth on postal voting statements against computerised records.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article