ABSTRACT Recent studies on active labour-market programmes have shown that welfare beneficiaries exercise agency to resist normative expectations and institutional demands leading to low-paid jobs. This study examines young native and immigrant working-class women’s resistance to labour-market activation policies in French-speaking Switzerland. Using ethnographic data from two activation programmes and interviews with young unemployed women, the results show that the gendered organisation of the programmes contributes to making women and their work invisible. The young native women use their invisibility strategically to develop discreet resistance and fight for their respectability. Immigrant women are more compliant but exercise forms of political agency for emancipation. Using the approach of particularistic resistance, we show that resistance within welfare institutions is not only a way to express individual dissatisfaction but also a form of agency and individual political action. Future studies should examine welfare beneficiaries’ agency in navigating and resisting welfare policies.