To start, there were the pitches from college engineering programs in curly purple typeface accented by flowery images. Women are grossly underrepresented in engineering and computer science careers, a fact that is attracting an increasing amount of attention. Since May, a number of tech companies, among them Google and Facebook, have released their lagging diversity figures, accompanied by pledges to bridge the gender divide. The overflow of pink in her inbox moved the Virginia teen to pen an opinion piece, which was recently a runner-up in a New York Times teen editorial contest. At a recent Bay Area tech mixer put on by Girl Geek Dinners, the tech company that chose the decor elected to replace office lightbulbs with pink and purple ones, bathing the entire event in a fuchsia glow. Guests were encouraged to take a Cosmo-style personality quiz revealing their nerd girl personas and given slap-bracelets and strawberry lip balm at the door. Tools used by women - sewing machines, KitchenAid mixers, a mortar and pestle - were instead utensils and appliances. A 2008 study by the Association for Computing Machinery found that while college-bound boys equated words like "interesting," "video games" and "solving problems" with computing, girls associated terms like "typing," "math" and "boredom." [...] when women are reminded of the stereotype that men are better at math - even in extremely subtle ways, such as checking a gender box at the beginning of an exam - their performance measurably declines. A pink website for tech-savvy women, said Rebecca Jordan-Young, a professor of gender studies at Barnard, is like saying, 'Oh yeah, tech is for you, too. In February, at a Harvard event designed to get women interested in computer science, sponsor Goldman Sachs handed out cosmetic mirrors and nail files. Perpetuating ideasThe move inspired significant backlash after Yuqi Hou, a Harvard student and Web developer, posted a photo of the items on Instagram. The website for the project features articles about inspiring women, like Erica Kochi, who leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit. Some say the tech industry has simply co-opted the language that toy companies use to market products to girls.