To be honest I don't care about people calling me a dude per se. That was mainly to illustrate the point that lot of people online assume everyone is a guy until told otherwise since apparently girls don't exist on the internets. ಠ_ಠ But even then, where I come from the phrase dude is rarely used to describe or address girls unless used by close friends (and obviously close friends would take it jokingly etc). But whatever floats your boat.