This is nothing new when it comes to the discourse around terrorism. As writers like Glenn Greenwald have argued again and again, in the public imagination, terrorism has largely lost any meaning, defined for all intents and purposes as simply an act of violence committed by a Muslim. One need only look at the 2009 Fort Hood shooting by Maj. Nidal Hasan, which sparked a debate about whether his murder of 13 soldiers was an act of terror or not. Much of the coverage of that tragedy, initially, was focused on Hasan’s Muslim background, including that he had worn traditional Muslim garb and had yelled “Allahu Akhbar” as he fired, in the process ignoring the fact that he had targeted military personnel instead of civilians.

The Fort Hood shooting is hardly the only example where even the hint of Islamic belief has automatically designated an act of violence terrorism. Late last month, some debate raged over whether the case of Alton Nolen, who decapitated one co-worker and tried to behead another, was workplace aggression or terrorism. Even though the evidence pointed to a spontaneous act based on workplace animosity and racial tension, the fact that Nolen had recently converted to Islam led some to question if his act constituted terrorism. Similarly, after a 2007 mall shooting that left five people dead, right wing-commentator Debbie Schlussel trumpeted: “Surprise! Terrorist in Utah Mall Shootings is a MUSLIM.”

In addition to this, and in contrast to the media’s treatment of Sarkeesian’s situation, British newspapers never hesitated to declare the two men who murdered soldier Lee Rigby terrorists. Likewise when it came to the media’s treatment of the Melbourne teenager who stabbed two police offers in September. The point here isn’t whether these acts were legitimate acts of terror or not. Indeed, in the case of the Rigby murder, it’s uncontroversial to say the murder was terrorism. It’s that, in each of these cases, the media displayed little similar hesitancy in labeling or associating the criminals involved – all of whom were Muslim and none of whom were white – with terrorists.

It’s also instructive to think about the reaction of Utah State and the Utah government to this particular terror threat. The university wouldn’t prohibit the firearms in the auditorium where Sarkeesian was speaking because doing so would violate their carriers’ legal and constitutional rights. Similarly, a spokesperson for the Utah Attorney General’s Office affirmed that universities don’t have the authority to simply bypass this legal protection of gun rights. Fair enough.

Imagine for a second, though, if the speaker had been a visiting scholar who was a prominent defender of Israel. Before their scheduled talk, an anonymous email is sent by someone identifying themselves as a Muslim threatening to indiscriminately kill all Jews and supporters of Israel at the event with a cache of guns and pipe bombs in the name of Jihad. Would the school and the Utah state government be as insistent on citizens’ inalienable gun rights in this situation? Perhaps. But given the fact that the U.S. has already launched numerous constitutionally dubious programs as a response to Islamic terrorism – along with regularly curtailing the right of free speech at national political conventions out of a concern for security – there’s serious reason to doubt this.

It would also likely be overly optimistic to hope incidents such as these would divert the at-times almost single-minded focus on Islam as the midwife of violence and illiberal values. Extremists’ and fundamentalist Muslims’ awful treatment of, and attitude toward, women are often cited as a justification not only for wars against Muslim nations, but also for the suspect nature of Islam as a whole. It is on this basis – the idea that an innocent person simply sharing a religion with individuals who commit heinous acts makes them indistinguishable from such individuals – that the NYPD embarked on indiscriminate surveillance of Muslim communities and the NSA spied on Muslim supporters of the Bush administration.

This mind-set isn’t limited to those in power. Just last week, in fact, Bill Maher started a controversy within left-wing circles when he essentially accused liberals of being soft on Islam by not acknowledging that even its more moderate elements were poisonous to civil society. Maher was supported by neuroscientist Sam Harris, who chided liberals for being eager to “criticize white theocracy” while “failing” to similarly criticize the Muslim world. Even Muslims who aren’t jihadists and Islamists, he explained, “hold views about human rights, and about women, and about homosexuals, that are deeply troubling … they keep women and homosexuals immiserated in these cultures.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find commentators like Maher and Harris similarly vilifying the gaming community on the basis of its own vocal, violently misogynistic minority, however; this despite the fact that, putting statements from your garden-variety Islamic extremist side by side with the kinds of threats Sarkeesian and others have received, it’s clear these two groups share some similar attitudes toward women.

Neither will you see a system put in place to survey and profile young, male Internet users in the West – the chief demographic of 4chan according to its own advertising page, and the majority (if only just) of gamers, in America, at least. In the West, such a demographic tends to be viewed as the victims, not the perpetrators, of terrorism.

Does implementing such a system of mass profiling and surveillance of white, male gamers make sense? Is it fair or just, despite the threats that a number of women have received on their lives? It is assuredly none of those things, an answer it’s likely nobody has to think very hard about to offer.

Not only is it grossly unfair to label a whole, diverse community of individuals based on the example of a small, violent and extreme element. We would also likely agree that such targeting would be an ineffective overreaction to the problem at hand, which can only be solved through dialogue and the changing of individuals’ minds. Yet how many of us would say the same things when it comes to terrorism committed by those of a darker skin tone or different religion?

When the current furor around feminist criticism of games dies down, as it hopefully will, and critics such as Anita Sarkeesian are able to speak at whatever venue they like without having to worry whether someone will blow them up or gun down their listeners, we might be tempted to see it as a victory – as well we should. But we should also think about the double standard we hold toward terrorism when it comes from a certain source, and how we can start winning a victory over that, too.