It's a show of domination and/or a demand for attention as part of a patriarchal dominance hierarchy dynamic. I'd definitely be curious to see if anything remotely like this takes place in non-patriarchal cultures - but I'm going to guess that it doesn't.

I do know that although groping and such is an issue in Japan, there is apparently no real culture of talking to others on the street at all, so catcalling doesn't really exist there.