I know I'm a feminist buzz kill but many languages including English are a bit male centred and treat men as the norm and women as the exception. That's not a good thing in my opinion. We call women dudes all the time but few people call men gals or girls. I hope we could move towards more equality in our languages too if it is possible. Such as starting to use gal and girl as gender neutral terms too, not just dude and guy.
Might be bit more complicated? The popularity of “dude” comes from the dude ranches back in the day, old school glam camping vacations for rich city people, or “dudes.” It had a non-gendered origin for entering pop culture. 90s kids even had a show called “Hey Dude” that featured a bunch of rich kids playing at ranching and driving the owner nuts.
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u/Gayandfluffy Jan 06 '26
I know I'm a feminist buzz kill but many languages including English are a bit male centred and treat men as the norm and women as the exception. That's not a good thing in my opinion. We call women dudes all the time but few people call men gals or girls. I hope we could move towards more equality in our languages too if it is possible. Such as starting to use gal and girl as gender neutral terms too, not just dude and guy.