I'm 21. My dad's a great man, very calm and patient and caring. There's just a few things that I need to get off my chest about him. He married a second wife after my mom urged him to. After that came a third, then a fourth. Where we live, this thing's legal for Muslims. He has a family now of four wives and twelve children, three of them being from his first wife (my mom).
Okay. So my dad's basically a great guy. But he's very religious, and he's very committed to spreading his (our) religion. He started a non-profit organization dedicated to calling people to Islam. Now to do this he's needed enormous resources, both of time and effort. He started the first branch of this organization about the time I was born. So he would basically be gone for most of the day, but when he was home he would play with me, and as the years went on and as my brothers came along, he would play with all of us. But this became further and further apart, both because of his increasing number of wives, and because of his increasing duties and responsibilities towards his organization. My father now even owns a television channel. He runs a television studio, along with three branches of his "Centre". But all this meant lesser and lesser time spent with us. He would go away for literal WEEKS AND MONTHS abroad to do fundraising and lecturing. He would come back home bone tired, drenched in worry, but happy, because he was fulfilling his dream. He'd come back and play with us, take us for "adventures", and spend as much money as he could afford on our clothes, food and education. He especially concentrated on the education - both my brothers and I were homeschooled, and very rigorously trained in the religion. We even memorized the whole Quran, which is our holy book. 

Now cut to my mother. My mother is a very complex person, who loved us very deeply over the years. But she suffers (has suffered) from something - some mental condition - which makes her fly into frequent mood swings and rages over the smallest, most inconsequential of things. She's been clinically diagnosed - by her own admission - with SEVERAL disorders. Over the years my brothers and I have been scolded, hit and yelled at over and over, time and time again. My mother especially had a thing for me, because I suffer from problems of my own. She loves me very much, but has said the most horrendous things to me, and has beaten me almost into the hospital. We've had lesser and lesser fights and conflicts as I grew and matured and learned to control my temper. But my current living conditions are such that I cannot endure living with her for too many days at a stretch. Luckily, I have close, caring relatives who have taken me in, and my mother has now admitted that she has maltreated me over the years. I love her, and she loves me, and we carefully navigate the complexities of our relationship with respect (from my side) and caution (from hers). 

This leaves me. I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Much of my mental condition streams from the years of abuse I suffered at my mom's hands, by her own admission. But some of it may be hereditary, who knows. These things are complex, and causality of mental disorders are not always easily understood. I don't blame my problems on my mom, because I understand that she was not complicit in her own mental condition. Translation: She was fucked up by someone too (from what I've heard, it seems to be her own mom, with some sexual abuse and negligence thrown into the mix). 
Now we circle back to my father. 
The way I see it is this: he married my mom. Then he took a second wife with my mom's implicit permission (she found the bride for him).  Then came the third and fourth. However, see this: he already was stretched thin because of his Islamic and managerial commitments. He CHOSE to produce more children than he knew what to do with. He used to spend time with us taking us on trips, playing sports with us, etc. But those times got fewer and fewer as the number of his children increased, along with the number of his projects. The way I see it is this: he left us (me and my brothers) with a mentally unstable caregiver. (He's known she was mentally unstable for more than a decade.) He kept taking up more responsibilities. He kept producing more children. Time and attention that he could have given the three of us is now stretched over TWELVE FUCKING CHILDREN. He was mentally stable, he was capable of protecting us. He could have stayed home, not married so many women, not taken up so many things. He could have given all three of us all of, or atleast half of, his time and attention. He chose not to. Not maliciously, because he's VERY caring and loving and protective of us. He's just...I don't know. I wish I knew. He's idealistic. He's a dreamer. There are millions of dads in the world worse than him. He never ignored me, never belittled me. Even when I reneged on his religion, he kept extending me his unconditional support. Recently (a few months ago) I had a breakdown and threatened to kill my psychiatrist, which led to my institutionalization and diagnosis. He was there throughout. He visited as often as they allowed him to; he supported my choice of living away from my mother after my release. He actively discusses my problems with me when I need him to, and when I have outbursts he's there for me, patient, calm and collected. 

And yet. There's some small part of me pointing a finger at him. I want to get even. I want to get even for my mother, who had to fight for her rights over the years in a polygamous family, in a family in which there was such a big imbalance of power. I'm a feminist, and he's the patriarch, and I want to drag him down off his throne and let him SEE. See the damage he's done. I want closure. I want to not have to carry around this gigantic chip on my shoulder. I want him to get what is coming to him. 

I want to punch him. 

Should I? Should I risk everything, our entire relationship, on a whim, an impulse? I want catharsis. I want to share with him the pain and the guilt and the anger, I want him to SEE, to FEEL. I want to do something shocking, but not something that makes him love me less. I don't want him to love me less. I want to be his favorite daughter, his favorite child. But I also want this piece of performance art. The feel of my knuckles bouncing against his nose and cheek. The blood. Maybe I want the attention. Maybe I want the drama. Maybe I want to create a statement: I reject and refuse you, I reject and refuse the box you have put me in. I reject and refuse being "one of" your children. I reject and refuse the role of "woman" in this family. I want to give up my femininity, hit back at the patriarch, be his equal, his everything. I want what is rightfully my mother's. I want justice for her. I want justice for myself. 

Should I, or shouldn't I?