In ancient prehistory, eons ago, the cat-call was born.
We're talking back - way back - before even the advent of true language. A time when human beings "conversed" in only the most rudimentary sense of the word. This was an age when most emotions were expressed through the vagueries of growls and whimpers, and a belly laugh would have been the highest form of linguistic achievement.
In this deep past, when homo sapiens just arrived on the scene, lived simple cave-owner, Mr. Urhgh Gralgrerrrr. Urhgh sits alone on a sweltering hot day, gnawing on the bone of a Neanderthal who tried to sneak in at night and kill Urhgh. I'm not saying I have proof humans ate Neanderthals, but based on our track record, I'm taking artistic privilege.
Anyway, Mr. Gralgrerrrr is sittin around, doin his gnawin, when a group of women from the nearby, more socially advanced tribe, walk by the entrance to his cave on their way to retrieve some water.
Urhgh has not seen a woman for many sunrises and he lives alone in his cave, being afraid and fighting other creatures to the death for the dubious privilege of gnawing on their bones. Urhgh doesn't have a lot going for him. So, he can, perhaps, be forgiven for letting out a longing, guttaral snarl at the tribe women as they pass and then setting himself back down for some more gnawing.
Thus the cat-call was created
Urhgh had to fight sabertooth tigers, what's modern man's excuse?
Cut to the modern day and somehow the cat call has remained almost unchanged for countless millenia. The only other things on God's green earth that weathered evolutionary pressures as well are horseshoe crabs and ants.
Sure, the modern rendition of the catcall is less diaphramagtic and more nasal. The most iconic rendition is the high pitched whistle followed by an off color comment if the target woman should look back in confusion.
But not everyone can whistle so well, so the modern world provides ample alternatives for enhancing the catcall of the whistling impaired.
One popular methodology, which actually inspired this post, is the use of a taxi's horn to replace the rudimentary tool that is the human mouth. Why tire out your lips with a long, piercing whistle when you can create a sound far more alarming with the push of a button. You're sure to get her attention with a sound commonly used as a means of avoiding deadly collision!
An epic failure of planning.
What frustrates the astute observer most about a catcall is up for debate. Certainly the wanton objectivication of total strangers trying to go about their normal day is itself upsetting.
But the logician may feel a different form of frustration entirely: what the fuck is the cat-caller's plan exactly?
When has a cat call ever been successful? Who is the one guy who let out a long, fierce whistle, or honked the horn of his taxi for 20 seconds, and got a sexual fling out of it? That person doesn't exist. That whole scenario doesn't exist. Ostensibly, the whole point of a cat call is to get the attention of a woman, but to what end?
There are only two possibilities:
The catcaller is calling the woman in a genuine attempt to win her over. If this is the case, the catcaller is an unthinking idiot who doesn't have any idea how people, or the world in general, work.
The catcaller is calling the woman for some other reason - with an exception for the rare effort to alert the woman to an unseen danger - in which case, the catcaller is not only an idiot, but a disruptive asshole.
TL/DR: Men who catcall random women on the streets are harkening back to the animal instincts of ancient human beings. In so doing, they are proving themselves, at a minimum, to be idiots and, at a maximum, to be assholes who think nothing of objectifying random women trying to get through their day.
Pictures:
[1]By Margaret A. McIntyre [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
[2]By Octagon Own work CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons