The return of the word "geek" in the mid-1990s can be traced to the popularization of workplace computing and the Internet and the dot-com bubble of 1995–2000. The early days of the reclaimed use of "geek" were strongly associated with computers and information technology and the majority of practitioners were male.Neil Feineman's Geek Chic: The Ultimate Guide to Geek Culture (), both noted "the increasing power of women in the geek world" and, at the time of publication (1995), characterized the book's research as "an exercise in machismo. The women were hard to find" (17). Similarly, in a 1996 study of high school cultures, linguist Mary Bucholtz noted that "nerd status is overwhelmingly associated with males."Bucholtz, Mary. "Geek the Girl: Language, Femininity, and Female Nerds". Gender and Belief Systems. Proceedings of the Fourth Berkeley Women and Language Conference. Ed. Natasha Warner, Jocelyn Ahlers, Leela Bilmes, Monica Oliver, Suzanne Wertheim and Melinda Chen. Berkeley: University of California, 1996. 119-131. Two studies by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) quantified the gap between men and women in computing and the continuing problems recruiting and retaining female programmers.
