 Cherie Blair and Laura Bush come from opposite ends of modern womanhood.
While Cherie is a leading barrister with a six-figure salary, the president's wife was a shy former librarian who loves cooking. But when they met at Camp David in February, they quickly found they shared a crusade - battling breast cancer. Cherie lost an aunt and a best friend to the disease and Laura's mother was a victim. As Tony and Dubya got ready to plot the world's future in Crawford, Texas, the First Ladies joined forces to help women with the disease. They kicked off their weekend together by attending a fund-raising event for breast cancer awareness and research. Cherie, who arrived in Texas before her husband, told the audience in Dallas on Thursday: "We associate our breasts with our nurturing, our sexuality. To find a lump and to think of having that femininity removed is agonising. "But there is still life after breast cancer. You can still feel alive and sexy." Laura added: "Many of us know and love someone who has had breast cancer and it is very important we work together to find a cure. "Cherie thought it would be fun if we worked together to increase awareness in breast cancer care and support." Each year 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the US and 40,000 in Britain. (Agencies) | 英國的首相夫人切莉·布萊爾和美國的第一夫人勞拉·布什可以說是兩種截然不同的現代女性的代表。 切莉是一位月薪高達六位數的首席律師，而性格靦腆的美國總統夫人勞拉則曾是一位喜愛廚藝的圖書管理員。 然而當這兩位女性今年二月在戴維營會面的時候，二人很快找到一個共同的目標，成為了并肩作戰的"戰友"--向乳腺癌宣戰。 切莉曾有一位阿姨和一個最好的朋友被乳腺癌奪去了生命，而勞拉的母親也曾經是一位乳腺癌患者。 當英國首相布萊爾和美國總統布什準備在德克薩斯的克勞福斯共商世界發展大計的時候，兩位"第一夫人"則攜起手來，準備為幫助患有乳腺癌的女同胞們獻上自己的一份力量。 她們犧牲周末時間，共同出席為提高女性防治乳腺癌意識和進行乳腺癌研究而舉辦的集資公益活動。  切莉先于布萊爾到達德克薩斯，4月4日她在德州東北部城市達拉斯參加公益活動時對觀眾們說道："我們的乳房在哺乳和性生活中都有很重要的作用，所以如果發現乳房中有了腫塊，女性魅力大打折扣，該會是多么痛苦啊！"
她還說："但是乳腺癌并不意味著死亡。大家仍然可以做到活力充沛，性感迷人。" 勞拉則補充道："我們中的許多人身邊都有乳腺癌患者，這些人或許是我們認識的，或許是我們所深愛著的，所以我們必須共同努力，找到治療的方法。" "切莉認為齊心協力幫助大家提高防治乳腺癌的意識，為乳腺癌治療提供支持，是很有意義的事情。" 在美國，每年有20萬名女性被診斷出患有乳腺癌，在英國則有4萬人患有此病。 (中國日報網站譯) |
Updated: 2002-04-10 01:00
