In early March of 2026, in the vocational training area for student barbers at Green Haven Correctional Facility, mannequin heads stared stoically at mirrors and barber chairs. Incarcerated GED students and teachers sauntered by them, gazing at the women’s hairstyles that one group of barbers-in-training had learned during the course of the program.

As a student barber who did not take the women’s haircutting and styling section, I was there in a supporting role. I gave each observer — 80 or so — four haphazardly cut pieces of paper with the word “vote” at the top. Out of about 20 entrants, they scoped out the four hairstyles they liked the best, then cast their votes into cups.

This was how it went down at the Green Haven hair show.

The women’s haircutting and styling instruction started about a month before the hair show. The five “seniors” who took it — Courtland, Henry, Norman, Phillip and Tyshawn — weren’t aware that it was going to be part of their curriculum. Most were not interested in learning skills they didn’t sign up for.

Regardless of their resistance, each student received in-depth instruction from Ms. Yanieka Yeno, a 20-year tonsorial services educator and the facility’s barber school vocations teacher who believes that women’s styling prepares men for barbering. Using Chapter 16 of “Milady Standard Barbering,” the leading textbook in the field, she guided them through haircuts (blunt, graduated, uniform-layered, long-layered) and styling techniques (wet setting, hair wrapping, blow drying, curling with an iron). In addition, she taught them box braiding, cornrowing, loccing and twisting.

Ms. Yeno is passionate about her students learning the craft, adhering to safety standards, and translating what they learn into a viable option for earning legal income once they’re released. Later on in the eight- to 12-month barbering course, each student had to present a business plan. Ambition dripped from their trademarks alone. For instance, Norman’s “Hairport” would be where you leave “fly.” P’s “Richest Lifestyle” would make you look and feel like a celebrity. Tyshawn’s Top Notch Cutz was where you got the best service. Henry’s No Limits His and Hers would make men and women feel uplifted.

The sense of ownership and responsibility that Ms. Yeno instilled in the students prompted them to take pride in their work as a unit. Students divided duties amongst themselves. One laundered towels and capes daily. Another swung a broom after each appointment. One greeted clients and signed them in at the door.

The students’ solo work also showed their pride in their stations and their skill sets. They cleaned and disinfected their seats, mirrors, floor mats, tools and implements before each use. Three days a week, when they weren’t reading the textbook together, their clippers buzzed, their blow dryers rumbled, and they applied gel to braids and locs. Students styled each other’s hair and gave each other facials, which was part of the barbering curriculum. They also set appointments with men in the general population. Their skills improved with each client.

I admit that the women’s section caught me off guard at first. We are housed in a men’s facility, and these skills seemed unnecessary. I couldn’t see beyond those limitations until I saw how it expanded my peers’ minds and their possibilities.

One morning in February, just before the final exam, Ms. Yeno conducted a chapter review session. She stood at the podium in an oversized black blazer, polo shirt, trousers, and boots. (She wore this modesty-protecting uniform as often as Pee-wee Herman wore his gray suit — every day.)

One man who admitted to battling with a learning disability that made it difficult for him to read, fired off answers to almost every question.

“You don’t need no special education," a supportive classmate said. “My guy [is] really smart.”

Ms. Yeno then pulled out an assortment of tabloid magazines. The group gathered around her. “What kind of style and cut is this?” she asked the class, pointing to Brad Pitt.

“Uniform-layered,” Courtland correctly responded.

Ms. Yeno pointed to Gayle King.

“Over direction,” said Norman.

“It is,” the teacher responded, “a blunt cut with over direction in the front.”

After this game of “Name That Cut,” Ms. Yeno retrieved mannequin heads from a supply closet. It was time for the men to demonstrate what they had learned about hair molding and roller-setting.

Henry explained the techniques he had used on his roller-curled style over box parts. It was very…technical. “This is roller curls, multidirectional off the base, on the side, on the base at the top, and counterclockwise off the base around the perimeter,” he said with pride.

Courtland’s account of his roller curls on zig-zag parts was much simpler: “This is my baby mama in the morning,” he quipped. Everyone laughed.

The men could laugh together at that point, but being a barbering student learning women's haircutting and styling provoked a range of reactions.

For Phillip, a Rastafarian steeped in the faith’s homophobic doctrine, learning women’s haircare was troubling at first because it was seen as stereotypically feminine. “It was kind of shaky to me,” he explained to me. “I had to be comfortable with myself. That’s progress for me."

Courtland, a girl-dad two times over, saw it as an opportunity to bond with his daughters and save money. “I can do anything [a beautician] can do,” he said.

Norman, a barber before his incarceration,” was receptive to Ms. Y’s advice on his braiding and loc styling techniques. “I’m a hair doctor,” he said. “This is my profession, my lifestyle.”

Tyshawn hated women’s haircutting and styling and found it complicated. “A man’s haircut is squared, easy to find the points,” he explained. Instead, Tyshawn, who has unblemished chocolate skin and believes that skincare is as important as dental care, took to facials and made them popular among the general population. Now it’s not uncommon to see gangsters reclined in his chair with a steaming towel nearby. “My clients tell me, ‘I didn’t think I needed it until I got it,” said Tyshawn. And they keep coming back. He sets up three clients a day.

On the day of the hair show, Norman was in his element. In a comedic appeal, he had outfitted his mannequin with two-strand twists on one side, a rollercoaster of looping cornrows at center, and a zero-elevation pressed bob cut on the other side. “This is Daddy Yankee, ASAP Rocky and Katt Williams,” he told a Black voter. To a Hispanic voter he said, “This is Daddy Yankee, Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez right here.”

One chair down, Phillip sold his look — candy twists and Rasta locs — to hair show goers: “Ya mama wear it. Ya sista’ wear it. Ya’ good to go,” he declared.

Courtland simply sat on his chair, watching. His mannequin had two-inch braids bordered by smaller braids that swooped and dashed. He was not interested in winning votes. He just felt confident in his abilities and proud of how far he had come. That was enough.

The winner of the hair show was announced in secret, and I will keep it that way. But everyone won a prize. Women’s haircutting and styling was an unannounced stop on their journey towards becoming licensed barbers. But they gained confidence in their craftsmanship and expanded their boundaries.

They are more than men in prison. They are hairstylists, too.

Joseph Wilson is a father, self-taught composer, librettist, singer, songwriter, pianist, art curator, co-founder of the Sing Sing Family Collective and contributing writer for The Marshall Project. He is currently incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York.