While women are a growing proportion of gamers overall, their representation among players of "e-sports" remains pitifully small. According to a survey conducted by e-sports production company WellPlayed and highlighted by DailyDot, the e-sports fan base remains over 90 percent male.

WellPlayed conducted its survey during three tournaments over the course of the year, two with League of Legends and one with StarCraft 2. Of the participants, 2,040 were male, 69 were female, and 33 identified as "other."

The e-sports community has proven very hostile to women, worse than standard gaming culture still is, although there have recently been concerted efforts to change the current of conversation. Still, less than two years ago, Aris Bakhtanians, a prominent Street Fighter x Tekken player, declared that "sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it's not the fighting game community." He later gave a circumspect apology. And the first woman to join a professional StarCraft 2 team, Kim "Eve" Shee-Yoon, was chosen "for her skills and looks," according to the team's manager, which sounds not entirely unlike why a woman might be chosen for a softball team during World War II.

Meanwhile, in the larger gaming community, 45 percent of people playing games are female, though only four percent of video game protagonists in the 25 best-sellers of 2013 were female. For anyone looking to get into video-game spectating, if e-sports doesn't strike your fancy now, Twitch Plays Pokemon and Dota 2 are excellent places to start.