Hillary Clinton may have put “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” for women, but can it help a young woman conjure the courage to ask for a raise at work?

The short answer may be no, according to Hannah Seligson’s essay featured in The New York Times this weekend called, “Girl Power at School, but Not at the Office.” 

I was skeptical at first about what Seligson, 26, could possibly say that would add to the tiresome conversation about inequalities between men and women in the workplace.

But as I read it, it sparked memories of my own rough entrance into a career: working for a sleezy boss, always being afraid to speak up for myself, and my constant preoccupation about whether I could be perceived as a professional first and a woman second.

(AP Photo/LM Otero)

Seligson’s solution is to take what has worked for men and transform it into something that can also work for women. (Example: Men can easily ask a colleague to go out for a drink to talk business; women can’t seem to do the same without appearing like they are looking for a date. Women may have to be less casual when asking for the same thing, Seligson says.)

Perhaps the scariest revelation in the article is that women wrongly believe the workforce works a lot like academia: if you work hard enough, you will be rewarded and advance.

But if we really want to get ahead, we can’t expect others to be advocates for us; we have to be advocates for ourselves.