HTML Javascript question

to get the selected value of a input-select I can use

<select id=gender name=gender class=style12>

    <option selected=selected>ALL</option>

    <option>Male Only</option>

    <option>Female Only</option>

</select>



document.getElementById('gender').value

is there any easy way for me to get the selected label (i.e. ALL / Male Only / Female Only) with javascript?

Thanks a lot for reading.