Why was Nurse Ratched so dang mean?

Question

Remember Nurse Ratched, from One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest? What made her such a control freak?

Answer 1

She was a sadist. Lots of sadists work in the mental health and medical fields. I know, I was a nurse once.

Answer 2

I'm gonna go with the answer above, Nurse Ratchett being a sadist. Or maybe she didn't start out that way, but became a control freak because of all the disorder, and became a sadist because she wanted to control their pain.

Answer 3

She was a woman.