Dude, is this rude?

[Lynn2000]

I think it's okay among friends. Might be a little weird using dude as in "dude, pass the chips" because you don't remember her name, as you would with a guy--I wouldn't immediately realize you meant me, for one thing. But personally I wouldn't be offended, it would be a positive/neutral kind of weird.

For some reason I picked up on using "dude" a fair amount in conversation. If it flows well with the sentence (usually something humorous) I'll use it to address a fellow female, or in reference to a female.

[Auntie Mame]

I'm okay with Dude, especially a slow Duuuuuude! when someone screws up. It's like me saying the slow Girrrrrl! to one of my girlfriends.

Bf tends to overuse dude, a lot.  I teased him one day when he started a sentence with "Dude!"  I said, "Whoa, did you just dude your girlfriend?  You don't dude your girlfriend!".  He laughed and said "I do" I answered "not anymore, have you seen my heels? I am not a dude".  He laughed harder and agreed that I was certainly not a dude and hasn't called me that since.

Time and a place though, I would never say it in a professional setting or to my grandmother.

[NyaChan]

I don't have a problem with the use of dude, I use it myself. "Dude pass the beer" is not particularly polite due to the lack of a please or the sound of it being a request rather than a command.  If your relationship with this woman is casual enough that you don't need to worry about please or asking rather than demanding (and yes I think there are relationships where saying please is optional as long as you are nice about it), then you don't need to worry too much about calling her dude 

[Knitterly]

Dude, you are way, way, over- thinking it.

Agreed.

I believe my stance on this one should be clear.

 

The only time it bugs me to be called "dude" is when my husband does it. For some reason it just sounds wrong. lol

Funnily enough, Mr K and I call each other "Dude" all the time.  He calls his brother "dude", too.  The first time his brother heard him call me "dude", his eyes popped out of his head and he said "You call your wife "Dude"?!?!"

It's all about who you are with and the type of relationship you have with them.

Generally speaking, though, I know very few women who would be offended by being called "dude".

[Bijou]

Don't call your grandmother dude unless that's her name, but it just depends.  Among dudes, fine.  Otherwise, it can come across as disrespectful...like calling someone Sister, babe, or whatever.

[Piratelvr1121]

Dude, that is totally cool as far as I'm concerned.

I'm actually trying to teach my youngest to do the "fin, noggin, duuuuuude" thing from Finding Nemo.  He's got the noggin part down.

[pearls n purls]

I wouldn't use dude with women you don't know, but rules are different among friends, especially in casual get-togethers.

If you call her dude and she looks surprised/shocked/unhappy, don't call her dude again.  If not, dude on.  Especially if you're calling everyone dude.

[LifeOnPluto]

I'm a female, and personally, I wouldn't really like it.

But my circumstances may be unique. I have short-ish hair and a skinny build (not many curves at all!). Sometimes as an adolescent (and even occasionally as a young adult) I'd get mistaken for a boy, or teased about looking like one, etc.

I've since filled out a bit, grown my hair slightly longer, and learnt how to dress in more feminine ways. But still, if a guy addressed me as "dude", I'd have a moment of panic, thinking that he mistook me for a man. Or that he was having a sly dig at how "masculine" I look.

[diesel_darlin]

I admit that I overuse dude. A lot. I am in a shop full of guys all day long. Its just second nature to say "DUUUUUUDE" to me.

[Piratelvr1121]

I once got mistaken for a boy.  I was 24, wearing my oversized McDonald's uniform shirt (it was all they had for me when I was hired), plus my hair was tucked up into my hat.  Not to mention I'm not well endowed in the chest region and that was after 2 kids. Ouch.

Growing up though, I heard Dude applied to boys and girls so "dude" wouldn't get me thinking it was a dig.  Ymmv.

[P12663]

I'm another who thought that 'Dude' was strictly masculine.  But then, my crowd uses the word more as a noun ("There was this dude...") than a name-substitute.

[Allyson]

I love 'dude' as a gender-neutral casual form of address. I think it's awesome. So I am very pro-dude! That said, it does seem to really vary from group to group. To me, my friends are just my friends and I don't really react to them differently based on gender, so it's nice to have a term for everyone/anyone!

[Raintree]

It wouldn't particularly offend me, but.....a dude is a guy!!!! I've heard it used on females occasionally and I find it a bit weird.

[baglady]

In my world, "dude" is always masculine. As a noun it substitutes for "guy" -- "There was this dude ..." As a form of address, it's a cousin to "buddy" or "man," which can be terms of endearment ("I love ya, man!") or annoyance ("Hey, buddy, watch where you're going!"). Some young adults I've heard use it almost as punctuation, as their hippie forebears did with "man," and it wouldn't occur to me to take it personally -- they're not calling *me* dude, they're just *saying* it a lot. ("We went to ___ last night. Dude, it was awesome!")

That said, it would feel very strange to be called "dude" in the setting the OP describes. For one thing, it wouldn't register on me that I was the one being addressed, since I'm female. It isn't rude, necessarily, just not very efficient. Why not use the person's name? Or if you don't know it, a combination of body language (leaning or looking in her direction) and "Sorry, I'm blanking on your name ... ."

I'm in my 50s, so that may color my judgment on this. I'll think about it some more after I shoo those kids off the lawn.

[CrochetFanatic]

It never really bothered me.  I've heard people preface a statement with "Dude" in place of "Hey, guess what", and once or twice a male friend has called me "Dude" in a way that seemed almost affectionate.  Sort of like he saw me as an honorary "one of the guys".  I'm neutral about that, though.  My internal reaction is sort of an, "Um, okay.".  If I know the person well, and if it clearly isn't meant as an insult, I usually won't take it as one. 

I would be livid if a guy ever addressed me with "Hey, (female dog)!"  That actually happened once, and I looked over my shoulder to see who he was talking to, even though it was clear that he meant me.  I replied with, "That's not my name, and you're on your own."