As the Hope Solo-Brandi Chastain feud sucks up American media attention in London, the matter of other female athletes touted by Western women’s sports activists has flown under the radar since their notable entrance during the Opening Ceremony Sunday night.

Late yesterday an agreement was reached for Saudi Arabian judoka Wojdan Shaherkani to compete with a hijab, which International Olympic Committee and International Judo Federation officials said presented a safety concern.

The Saudis had threatened to withdraw Shaherkani as a competitor if the IOC and IJF had its way. Her father also objected to her appearance without the headgear that conforms to Islamic prescriptions for women’s clothing.

Under late and reluctant pressure from the IOC, Shaherkani and 800-meter runner Sarah Attar became the first two female Saudi Olympians, prompting happy proclamations in the West that all nations competing in the Olympics included both men and women.

Few noticed that Shaherkani and Attar were not allowed to march with Saudi Arabia’s male Olympians but behind them. And as she marched, Shaherkani, 16, was unsure she would be competing at all.

Attar, 19, has spent her entire life in the United States. Her father is a Saudi national and her mother is American. Born and raised in Escondido, Calif., near San Diego, Attar has dual citizenship and is on the women’s track and cross country team at Pepperdine University. Any photos of her in American-style clothing have been removed at the request of the IOC and she is now seen only in attire that covers her hair, arms and legs.

When both women are set to compete, no doubt the Western media will be fluttering about how the Saudi womens’ appearance will represent more than mere symbolism. But as I wrote recently, the entry of female athletes from the last three gender holdout nations allows Western feminists and human rights activists to tick off a few more items on their gender equity checklist.

Those who track the plight of women in Arab and Muslim nations actively hostile to them having any kind of public existence seriously doubt that this kind of pressure from the West will produce significant cultural change.

You won’t be reading much about those concerns in the American and Western press, which very well may eat up Attar’s All-American attitude. I wish her and Shaherkani well and hope they inspire women of their faith to pursue sports. It’s been encouraging to see the support they’ve received from various corners of the Middle East.

But I’m a bit skeptical of claims that this a “giant leap.”

International pressure on Saudi Arabia to send women athletes to the London Olympics has paid off. But some working to improve the plight of females in sports and life in that country are skeptical it has more than symbolic value. Says Saudi sports website editor Ahmed al-Marzooqi:

“We are still disappointed here. I should be happy for them, but this will do nothing for women who want to be in sport in Saudi Arabia.”

But presentation is paramount for Saudi observer Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

“This flies against the traditions of having a woman not make a public display of herself or mixing with men. Now, the world could see women marching with men in the opening ceremony and – even more – women running in competition.”

Indeed, the United Nation’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, Wilfried Lemke, declares that the Saudi “decision marks a significant progress in realizing the right of all to take part in physical and sporting activities, and hence achieving greater gender equality in sport.”

Gender equality is, of course, a highly Western concept, untroubled by the real difficulties that remain inside Saudi Arabia, where extreme cultural resistance to women in public life could turn into even stronger revulsion with the presence their women competing in London.

For the UN, IOC and others demanding the Saudis break the gender line (it wasn’t really a “decision” at all), this is merely one more box to check on their checklist of symbolic acts regarding “equality.” It’s also meant to quell critics, primarily from the United States and other countries with advanced status for women, and who have been making the most noise about the Saudi absence.

Qatari women in the Olympics. Check.

Brunei women in the Olympics. Check.

Saudi women in the Olympics. Check.

The only three nations sending Olympians to London that have never included women before. Check.

Gender equality in sports and in life is indeed a wonderful thing. It’s not hard to understand why pressure would be exerted on a country that doesn’t allow women to vote, drive or be seen in public unaccompanied by a male, much less one that disapproves of female athletic activity. But the pressure groups clearly didn’t regard the realities for the women they claim to be helping and who fear a post-Olympic backlash.

Says Rawh Abdullah, a captain of a female soccer team in the Saudi capital, Riyadh:

“We have to wait. I am afraid of their reaction, if we push too hard. We risk being shut down completely, and I do not want to reach a dead end because of impatience.”

She’s stressing the importance of developing sports for women inside the kingdom from the ground up, on an organic basis, as slow and grinding as that may be. Failing to listen to the voices of those inside Saudi Arabia with the most to lose from this act of symbolism figures to make the work of changing laws and society from within even more onerous.

As al-Marzooqi says:

“It’s a conflicting situation. It may be good for the future, but it’s definitely not good for the present situation. There will be side effects.”

You don’t have to get all worked up like David Zirin does (and this he does about most anything related to culture and sports) to see how FIFA is missing a magnificent opportunity to be a global agent for positive change. For a change.

The international soccer governing body’s tumultuous summer took another regrettable turn last week when it barred the Iranian women’s national soccer team from a major qualifier for the 2012 Olympics because the players compete in headscarves.

This violates FIFA’s policy against such attire, and Iran was forced to forfeit its match to Jordan, dashing its hopes of getting to London. Even Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein thinks this has gone too far, and has offered to mediate a resolution.

FIFA took this action on the heels of the dreadful re-election of boss man Sepp Blatter and allegations of bribery that have marred it in the worst scandals of its history, and that’s saying something. Appointing Henry Kissinger and Placido Domingo to the new “Council of Wisdom” won’t make the graft go away, nor will it offer anything of note beyond perhaps some good music.

Neither does Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deserve much praise for accusing FIFA of being “dictators and colonialists who want to impose their lifestyle on others.” He’s been rather good at doing that to his own people.

But it is a damning statement on the state of FIFA at a time when its reputation couldn’t be worse.

While soccer’s status as the world’s most popular sport has given Blatter the cover to be his own dictator, he’s been a poor steward in fostering the growth of the women’s game.

As the United States won the 1999 Women’s World Cup, there Blatter was on the platform with the trophy winners, prompting his many refrains that “the future of football is feminine.”

Except that in the 12 years since, it doesn’t appear to be anything more than what he intended at the time: A cheap and easy slogan, cashing in on a landmark moment. There are now age-group competitions for women, which is a good thing on one level. But on another, this has only expanded Blatter’s global network of patronage that maintains his power. It is, for the most part, a rather sorry all-male contingent.

Consider this: There is not a single woman on the FIFA Executive Committee, the group that chooses World Cup venues and that has been embroiled in the scandals. FIFA does have a Committee for Women’s Football, but its top two officers are men. Strangely enough, FIFA insists on all-female representation only in refereeing crews for its women’s international tournaments.

And yet Blatter still has the temerity to proclaim, as he did at the Women’s Under-17 World Championships last year, that the sport can liberate women.

FIFA’s headscarf policy, and its governing structure devoid of females in any position of authority, has had the effect of squelching them.

Women in Iranian society have shown their passion for soccer often enough for the frightened mullahs and government to bar them from going to stadiums and even movie theatres to watch games. All across the Arab and Muslim world, women are taking part in demonstrations to open their societies.

In some countries there, leaders are seeing the value in opening up the fields of play for women. Qatar, the controversial winner of the 2022 World Cup sweepstakes, started a women’s domestic soccer league — in part to woo over the European-dominated Lords of FIFA — and will be sending women athletes to the Olympics for the first time in London. Question the Qataris’ motives if you will, but they are encouraging women to get in the game.

(I’m sorry, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s girls soccer initiative launched this week won’t have the impact of a meaningful FIFA women’s soccer program that would tap into the organic growth of the game. This just looks like more America-knows-best preaching.)

In a sense, FIFA is acting the same way by requiring those from a different culture to meet its Western-based standards of dress. Iran’s women, who have been victimized enough by their own rulers, are now being denied the chance by FIFA to make a poignant statement against that very oppression. FIFA and Blatter need to understand that opening the doors of competition to women from countries like Iran is the first order of business. If FIFA had any women on its most powerful committees, they might have been able to advise them that the simple act of getting on the field, with or without a hijab, would be undeniably powerful and hard to reverse.

Start there, and then work on the cultural differences. Better yet, respect them. All FIFA has done is make Ahmadinejad seem more reasonable and enlightened by comparison, and that’s not easy to do.

Later this month, another Women’s World Cup gets underway in Germany, another reason to lament the timing of FIFA’s action. There will be no countries from the Middle East: Asia’s representatives are Japan, North Korea and Australia.

Arab and Muslim women will see no glimpse of women like themselves. Unless FIFA reverses its policy and gives the Iranian team another chance, the same is likely to be the case in London.

That would be bad not just for women’s soccer. It also would be a tragedy for women living in that part of world who may yearn for a different life, but have little to inspire them to try.