I thought this too, but apparently there is a whole palette of female versions for dude, guy, lad etc. [1]. I only heard “gals” before, never lasses or dudeens.

I thought this too, but apparently there is a whole palette of female versions for dude, guy, lad etc. [1]. I only heard “gals” before, never lasses or dudeens. And the “gals” also only occurred in spoken form, I’ve never read it anywhere (although I consume a lot of english media). Maybe it’s because I’m not a native speaker. In Germany we have a huge gap between daily/ business communication and the communication from authorities. The latter don’t write „Sehr geehrte Studenten“, but „Sehr geehrte Student:innen“, so I suspect something similar is happening here too. [1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-feminine-word-for-lad https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-feminine-word-for-lad