(Revised May 20, 2025)
The late 20th century saw a transformation in professional culture around gender. We use language as a lens on cultural change, tracing how peer influence within professional networks shaped gendered pronoun choices in economic theory papers since 1970. We estimate a discrete choice model in which pronoun use reflects fixed author preferences, peer influence, and co-authorship bargaining. Peer influence plays a central and quantitatively large role in shaping writing style: when peers’ use of the feminine form rises from 20% to 70%, the odds of adoption more than double. We reveal a profession of conformists: the observed shift required external cultural influence, which conformity initially suppressed but later amplified. We document a tension between individual preferences and peer influences: despite individual preferences that penalized the masculine status quo, women—who are more conformist than men—gravitated toward it by aligning with peers, especially early on. Though not initiators, their entry accelerated cultural change once under way by amplifying peer effects. Amid these opposing forces, homophily helped sustain diversity in writing styles by allowing homogeneous collaborations to express non-traditional preferences. Cultural change depends not just on who enters a profession, but on how they reshape peer dynamics once inside.