Proposals for an EU wide quota for women on boards of companies have sparked widespread debate over the past weeks. Critics of the proposal, both male and female, describe the idea of mandatory quotas as demeaning, discriminatory and a blatant attack on companies' right to self-determination. After weeks of speculation, the European Commission finally released EU legislation aimed at improving gender balance on company boards in Europe. Whist this version seems slightly more watered down with no specific mention of mandatory quotas, it still obliges Ireland to ensure that listed companies have 40% female board members by 2020.

Critics of quotas, both male and female, describe them as demeaning and discriminatory whilst supporters argue that quotas are an effective and quick way to ensure equal numbers of men and women on boards and that the existing voluntary mechanisms are either too slow or not working at all. One thing both sides agree upon however is that women are spectacularly underrepresented in high level positions across companies in Europe.

Women are barely visible amongst the top level of companies in Europe. Despite women accounting for 60% of university graduates and workforce across Europe, only 13% of company boards are made up by women. 86.5% of board members are men and 97% of the chairpersons are men. In Ireland, women account for only 8.7% of the members of boards of the largest publicly listed companies, this is well below the EU average of 13.7%. The rate of improvement is painfully slow with statistics showing an increase of a mere 2% since 2003 and 2012. At this rate of change, it would take around 150 years to achieve boardroom equality of at least 40%.

These are the facts and it is based on them that EU Member States have decided to act. Gender imbalance on corporate boards isn't just a feminist issue; it's a business issue too. Barriers to women entering high level positions are a waste of highly qualified and skilled human resources needed for financial and economic efficiency. Gender quotas are not just based on ideology - there are numerous studies carried out by companies like Ernst and Young, McKinsey, Deutsche Bank and others which show that companies perform better with women on their boards.

Since 2011, the issue of the underrepresentation of women on boards of business across Europe has been on the European Commission's agenda. European Commissioner Viviane Reding has concentrated her efforts on achieving equality on boards noting that progress has been painfully slow and that patience is wearing thin. In an attempt to speed up progress, she set up a pledge system to allow companies to take a voluntary approach to increasing women's presence on the board. With this pledge initiative she invited companies to sign up and commit themselves to raise female participation on their boards to 30% by 2015 and 40% by 2020.

The results? Even the most sceptic commentators would be surprised by the lack of attention this voluntary approach received. A grand total of 24 companies EU wide signed up to the pledge, the rest preferring to bury their heads in the sand hoping that the threats of further action would fizzle out. Unfortunately for them this was one issue that was not to be pushed to the back of the EU agenda. The message was clear; self-regulation alone does not work.

Gender quotas are not free passes for women to coast into top executive jobs replacing and discriminating against qualified male candidates. Any proposed legislation on quotas should be based on a merit led approach to gender diversity. Female candidates are appointed by qualification and merit. Should there be no qualified candidate then there will be a "flexibility clause" ensuring the best, available candidate is selected.

The fact is that these qualified female candidates exist but are not being given the opportunity to rise to the top. In March this year, leading European Business Schools published a list of more than 3500 women with top level studies and long management experience ready to sit in the governing bodies of companies. The fact that any females appointed through legislation would be based on qualification and merit counters any arguments made that such quotas are demeaning to women who would be treated as a token candidate. These are not sympathy appointments; they are based on merit giving women the same opportunities as men.

At the heart of the debate surrounding women on the boards is the choice between legislating for gender quotas and using a voluntary approach led by companies themselves. Undeniably, voluntary approaches including training, mentoring and networking programmes have led to improvements. However, the major drawback is the length of time that these measures take to introduce real improvements. Are we prepared to wait another 40 years for equal representation especially given the economic climate we are in at the moment? Waiting and relying on the spontaneity of companies is no longer a sufficient option. This leads us to the option of introducing quotas as a supplementary approach to voluntary measures to achieving a balanced board.

Just as quotas have been introduced in political representation across Europe, so too should temporary, mandatory quotas for females on boards. Emphasis needs to be put on any quotas being temporary. It should be a short term solution aimed at changing attitudes and breaking up elite circles engrained in company culture. Quotas are not about introducing positive discrimination or giving women an easier time then men. It is about levelling the playing field so that equal opportunity is given to both men and women.

- Ciara Burbridge

There’s definitely a time and a place for a video released as an attempt by the EU Commission to get more girls into science. The time for “Science: It’s A Girl Thing” a 53-second cringe featuring overly-sexualised minors strutting around in safety goggles and minidresses , salivating over how bubbling flasks and chemical formulas always lead to neon make-up is never, and the place is nowhere. By Naomi Elster

As one blogger put it "The EU Commission may as well have put a lipstick on a string, and filmed 18 year old models doing a belly crawl after it from the nail parlour (or wherever they would normally be) to the lab bench." I’ve never seen a video so ill-received – a barrage of response videos have appeared on YouTube, and Twitter and Facebook are awash with criticisms, from both official sources, such as Ben Goldacre (author of Bad Science), Nature (the most prestigious science journal), and most of my friends – fiercely intelligent female scientists who I have studied and worked with and learnt from are rightfully angry. As one friend put it “It’s nice to know Marie Curie slowly irradiated herself to death so we could watch a bunch of fashion models play with molecular models while not wearing lab coats.” (Marie Curie was the scientist who discovered radiation, paving the way for a number of important developments including chemotherapy).

The ad is inappropriate on a number of levels. A feminist friend once commented, "advertising is one of our worst enemies." She is correct, but we have the right to expect better from the taxpayer-funded EU Commission. The ad trivialises science and the important work that scientists do; it is insulting to women; and it is far too over-sexualised for something that the EU is aiming at minors (the target audience is 13-18 year old girls).

In advertising, women are by default stick-thin, scantily clad and without depth, intelligence or character. The women in “Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” fit the bill perfectly, but I would have expected better from the EU Commission, which should be trying to tackle negative stereotypes such as these. To make matters worse, the Commission defended the video, saying it wanted to "speak [women’s] language to get their attention." The language of women? The person or persons who devised this ad clearly have a blinding ignorance of science that is second only to their ignorance of women. "When I think woman, I think pink!" We are not simpletons and you cannot interest our entire gender in something by showing us lipstick.

The overtly sexist way in which women are used in advertising is bad enough. But for the EU to stoop to this where the women featured in this video are meant to be representatives of successful female scientists is an attack on women and gender equality, whether meant that way or not.

Science is hard work, and female researchers are intelligent and independent. We have degrees. Many of us have MSc's and the majority of female researchers have doctorates or are working towards them. We work hard to get answers to complicated problems. We mean business and do not spend our days giggling over lipstick and pulling ridiculous faces at chemical formulas, doing catwalk struts around the lab to coquettishly peer over our sunglasses at a male colleague. To take a group of women who have achieved success through their own hard work, on their own merits and their own terms and reduce them into anorexic sex kittens who gasp and giggle over colourful explosions and lipstick is appalling. Maybe it would be funny if gender equality in science were real, but it is not. I can only speak for biomedical science, but women outnumber men at every stage apart from at the most senior levels, which are still male-dominated. The problem is not that we need more women at entry level.

Commenting on the campaign the EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said, “We want to overturn clichés and show women and girls, and boys too, that science is not about old men in white coats".

Admirable sentiments, but to trivialise science with lipstick is extremely insulting to the female scientists – or, as we think of ourselves, “scientists” who do difficult and valuable work every day. I am investigating new ways to treat aggressive breast cancers that do not respond well to drugs. It’s an important project but I accept that it will be relatively thankless. When we are ill we will thank a doctor for prescribing a drug and thank a pharmacist for dispensing it whilst giving little thought to the team of scientists who worked tirelessly to develop and refine it. I’m happy to do it because I want cancer treatments to be better, but I would appreciate it if the EU would not release condescending ad campaigns that could be read as “female scientists only care about cosmetics.” The work we do is very important and this advertisement is positively insulting.

The focus must be on getting the right people into science rather than getting more people into science. I am very proud to be one of several researchers featured in a video made by the Irish Cancer Society late last year. Most of the featured researchers are female, and although we are not strutting our stuff in skimpy dresses and heels that would be positively dangerous in a lab, I think we look pretty good. But far more importantly, we know what we're talking about, care about our research, and we are doing work that is interesting and important. This is the kind of approach that the EU should be taking – showing that it is possible to be respected as a female researcher, and that you have a breadth of opportunities open to you to do interesting and important work, if that’s what you want from life.

If you want to get women into science, make a video about science. Don’t patronise my profession or my gender. Don’t use public money to pay for a video which not only over-sexualises young women, insults female scientists and alienates people to the point where the official video is removed just days after it is posted.

The EU Commission has removed the video, but between the way that women were portrayed, young women were over-sexualised, female scientists were positively ridiculed and public money was wasted on the video, the lack of even a public apology or any sign of abashment from the Commission is perhaps the real political story here.

Naomi Elster holds a 1st class Honours degree in Pharmacology and is currently researching for a PhD at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, supported by the Irish Cancer Society. She blogs at http://nothingmentionednothinggained.wordpress.com/