LONDON — When Barbara Westgate joined the U.S. Air Force as a secretary in 1973, her career goal was to earn $5,000 a year.

"I thought I wanted to be a housewife," she recalled.

Today, Westgate is the civilian equivalent of a three-star general who helps to manage $822 billion (over five years*) in the Air Force's future defense program.

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Westgate was among the pioneering women serving in the military, intelligence and security services from around the world who gathered in London this week to discuss their experiences in leadership positions.

She told msnbc.com how an older male general offered his congratulations when she was promoted to director of logistics for the Air Force's advanced tactical aircraft program in 1988. "Of course you got the job, Barb, you're just so pretty," he said, before patting Westgate on the head.

"He was just from that generation," said Westgate, who is now a Washington, D.C.-based officer in the senior executive service of the Air Force. "He thought he was paying me a compliment." Furious as she was, Westgate didn't take it personally.

Amid the neat uniforms, gold insignia, polished medals, ribbons and brass buttons, the stories were often similar. The Royal Norwegian Navy commander who was the world's first woman to serve on a submarine, the British Royal Navy commander who was the first female flag officer, the Swedish Air Force colonel who was the first woman to command a regiment. When the latter was asked how it felt to be a woman in command, she said, "Well, I’ve always been a woman."

There was little bitterness. Delegates were quick to point out that their militaries had only really begun to open their doors to women in the past 20 years. It will take time for women to reach senior leadership roles, they reminded each other.

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Carol Pottenger said she started her career in 1978 on a tour in Pearl Harbor, a non-operational assignment far from any front line. It was a typical assignment for women then.

In the 1990s, the Navy began opening up ships and other divisions to women. Now 93 percent of assignments allow them – including the Navy SEALs in support capacity roles. However, that's not 100 percent. Pottenger explained the reality of what that meant for her current role as deputy chief of staff for capability and development at NATO Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in Norfolk, Va.: "I could command 40,000 sailors, but in one of the … [divisions] I commanded, women couldn't even serve."

Speaking to a room full of nodding heads, she added: "If you're going to recruit and retain the best and the brightest, you can't afford to ignore half the population."

Pottenger commended the mentorship programs and other policies that have opened up the military to women but urged young cadets to actively put themselves forward for more leadership roles and encouraged senior officers to aggressively support the policies from the top.

'I guess the message got through'
"Don’t be silly, we didn’t mean women,” Commodore Elizabeth Steele was told when she applied for a post with Canada's navy on a U.N. mission in Cambodia in 1992. She had joined the navy in 1986, when women weren't allowed to be maritime officers because of a policy that deemed them "not qualified."

But by then sea logistics had opened up to women and Steele submitted her application for the tour. Disgruntled by the response she got, Steele shot back that they should have specified that women need not apply.

"I guess the message got through because I ended up in Cambodia," she said.

Steele, who is now the deputy chief of staff and associate deputy minister at Canada's department of defense, advocates the concept of gender intelligence – or recognizing the different strengths men and women have and using them effectively.

"We have better teams … if we have teams that are diverse," Steele added.

However, one of the most important results Steele has seen of women entering the military is the influence it has on people in countries like Afghanistan — where women are not considered equal citizens.

It is important "for a young child to see women in a combat or military role," she said. “There is a connection that a female soldier makes with a person" that is unique and powerful.

Hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, an independent think tank for defense and security, the Women in Defence and Security Leadership conference wraps up today.

*The initial post failed to indicate that the $822 billion budget was over a five-year period.

By Marian Smith, msnbc.com

LONDON - "It's humiliating! They treated us like we were criminals," said Tracy Kuhns, who had traveled from Barataria Bay, La. to attend BP's annual shareholder meeting in London on Thursday.

She and her husband, Michael Roberts, had made the long trip with three other Gulf Coast residents hoping to address BP shareholders about their ongoing plight almost one year after the catastrophic oil spill began on April 20, 2010. But even with their proxy cards in hand, which they believed would allow their participation in the shareholders meeting, all five Gulf Coasters were denied entry.

"They asked us where we were from, we said Louisiana, and they said you can't go in," Kuhns told msnbc.com outside the massive Excel Center convention hall in east London. She described how the guards had lowered a metal security gate to stop them from entering the event.

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One woman from their contingent, Diane Wilson from Seadrift, Texas, didn't even get that far – after smearing black paint on herself at the convention center's entrance, she was promptly arrested by police.

For Kuhns and Roberts, however, it wasn't about protesting. "We wanted to tell the shareholders that all is not well in the Gulf of Mexico," explained Roberts, despite what BP says about the clean-up effort being a success. Before the oil spill he made a good living catching shrimp, crabs and fish, but today his family is living off the money he earned from  Vessels of Opportunity, the program that paid local boats to help with the clean-up. "And that's about to run out," he said.

Roberts said he was frustrated by BP's claims process, which he says wasn't compensating people adequately. "From my $100,000 claim, they gave me $6,000," he said. "We thought they would take care of us."

Another fisherman in the group of Americans, Byron Encalade, told a similar story. His small oyster fishing business in Pointe a la Hache, La. was devastated by the spill and time and time again BP denied his claims, he said. "I'm not out to destroy BP – they employ a lot of people. But they just need to keep their word," Encalade said.

He had wanted to urge BP to pay the interim claims. "Who are you giving the money to?" he said, addressing the oil company. "We're not getting it."

The group saw their trip to London, paid for by the Gulf Coast Fund charitable organization, as an opportunity to make sure BP's shareholders know that the disaster isn't over. "Everybody is sick, no one is talking about that," Kuhns said. She described the skin rashes people have and the respiratory difficulties – the "BP cough," as locals call it.

"They're scared of us, that's why they didn't let us in," Kuhns said. "The executives are scared to death that the stakeholders are going to find out the truth."

BP spokesman Robert Wine said the four Americans were turned away because they had been seen with Wilson, the woman who was arrested after staging the protest at the convention center's entrance. "The decision [to turn them away] was taken because of safety issues – because of the possible disruption," he said. "We weren't sure what might happen."

The company is entitled under law to turn people away over "appropriate grounds," Wine said, even if they hold proxy votes as the four Americans did.

About an hour into the meeting Kuhns, standing outside with the rest of her group, answered a call from someone inside the meeting. "He wants to know if we want to try to get in," she said to her husband. Roberts held up his proxy sheet, which he had torn into pieces.

He laughed. "Tell him their proxy is in 150 pieces."