In my area “dude” is really gender neutral in most cases.
Regional dialects and all that.
Funnily enough so is “man” in a lot of cases.
For example: “Man I don’t know what’s going on anymore.” In this case “man” is less a reference to anyone in any specific way and more like an exasperation (like fuck, shit, hell, etc) and is a really common usage.
In my area “dude” is really gender neutral in most cases.
Regional dialects and all that.
Funnily enough so is “man” in a lot of cases.
For example: “Man I don’t know what’s going on anymore.” In this case “man” is less a reference to anyone in any specific way and more like an exasperation (like fuck, shit, hell, etc) and is a really common usage.