Overall, an extremely limited number of academic studies have been conducted on the topic of coquetry in Latin America. In 1977, the Journal of Popular Culture published David H. Andrews’ study on coquetry, which provided the academic community with some important information regarding the social practice. Although his study was based out of Lima, Peru, Andrews was able to incorporate additional data that he had collected from several interviews with men and women from other Latin American countries (1977). Andrews’ publication was largely descriptive, and his study was focused primarily on the following elements of the discourse practice: the context in which coquetry take place, the content and linguistic structure of coquetry, women’s immediate reactions to the advances, and possible social functions of this Latin American tradition.
Andrews’ publication, Flirtation Walk, expounded upon the most common ways in which men express their “appreciation of a female’s beauty” (p. 50). When explicating the context in which coquetry take place, Andrews’ data showed that not only do women receive coquetry from men that they pass on the street, but also from men on buses and in cars. Andrews’ informants also confirmed the existence of various types of coquetry, and the diversity was often
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By analysing the use of coquetry in Spanish-speaking countries, Achugar (2001) revealed a pronounced link between a culture and its ideology, and she argued that coquetry demonstrate “a very defined place for each sex in society” (p. 135). In her study, “Coquetry as Metaphors for Gender Roles in Spanish Speaking Cultures,” she argued that coquetry often reproduce traditional gender structures by reinforcing the notion that women are passive recipients and men are active producers and initiators in Latin America