Most of the catcalls are for the benefit of the other guys as opposed to the women. It’s actually saying, “I realize that woman would have nothing to do with me, so I’ll make insulting comments to prove what a man I am.”
It’s funny how cowardly these lechers are when confronted. There used to be a pair of latino hair dressers who sat on the big landscape pots at the entrance of a high rise I worked in and choochied the women as they came in in the morning.
One day, a woman who worked in the same building with me and I got to talking on the bus ride to work about these two. We resolved that if they were there when we arrived, we would give it right back to them. We did, they got all flustered and ran off, never to take up station there again.