Women from nations with different customs may express varying levels of psychological distress and present problems in forms their societies foster. This study compared women from two nations, Korea, a country  that supports women's dependence, submissiveness, obedience, and inexpressiveness, and Jamaica, a nation where women are independent and expressive. The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a multidimensional psychopathology measure, was used to survey 255 Korean and Jamaican women. The study tested whether Korean women reported higher overall problem scores and problems associated with anxiety and somatization.  Using age as a covariate, nationality as an independent variable, and the nine BSI scale scores and the total problem score as dependent variables considered separately, ANCOVAs  revealed significantly higher scores on five BSI scale scores for Korean than Jamaican women. Their significantly higher total problem score suggested that Korean women reported more overall psychological distress compared to Jamaican women.  Large effects on the Somatization and Obsessive Compulsive scales suggest that Korean women are particularly vulnerable to developing somatic and anxiety-related problems.