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This article draws upon interviews and observation among activists from the women’s branch of the AKP in Turkey to examine the possibilities for political subjectivation in partisan engagement. Contrary to a binary approach that would present matters in terms of oppression and emancipation, I study the effect of engagement on activist trajectories, including in their re-appropriation of gender norms. The notion of political subjectivation applies in three areas here: the transformation of everyday relationships to space and time; the negotiation of family roles and the attendant calls to order; and access to forms of symbolic, material and professional rewards. Studying the organisational framework of partisan activism confirms that subjectification takes place under institutional oversight, is limited by moral frameworks and is conditioned by party loyalty. Finally adopting an intersectional perspective reveals that the process varies depending on the social position of the survey subjects, revealing the internal heterogeneity of the AKP and the gap separating the party’s elite from its grassroots activists in point of their discourse, practice and careers.