What does it really mean to say "You're just jealous"?

Anita Creamer has some thoughts.

"You're just jealous" is one of the time-honored ways that the underminers among us like to cut bright women down to size when they raise reasonable criticisms of other women.

It's always shallow and dismissive. And it's often idiotic....

At heart, "You're just jealous" is also generally quite sexist, a fact that even seems to escape the women who think they're being insightful and original by leveling the jealousy charge at other women....

Still, "You're just jealous" serves a real purpose: to let women know they're not being taken seriously, ditzy little things that we are.

Well, I enjoyed reading that since I get the "you're just jealous" attack practically any time I criticize a woman. Of course, jealousy is a very common human emotion, and there are probably threads of jealousy -- along with innumerable other emotions -- woven through all of our opinions. But the problem is the way it's used when a woman criticizes a woman. It minimizes both women -- not only the woman who's accused of jealousy but also the woman on the receiving end, because she ends up looking like a fragile flower in need of a male protector.

People need to know that when you say "you're just jealous" to a woman who's criticizing a woman, you are saying "what I notice about your opinion is that you are a woman saying it." If you want to say that, go ahead, but if that's your style, you better think hard about whether you are a sexist. And a damn lazy one too because.... what a cliché.