I was trying to get the selected value from the <select> tag in PHP, but I get errors.

These is what I have done,

HTML

<select name="gender">
<option value="select">  Select </option>
<option value="male">    Male   </option>
<option value="female">  Female </option>
</select>

PHP script

$Gender  = $_POST["gender"];

but i get these error

Notice: Undefined index: gender in C:\xampp\htdocs\omnama\signup.php on line 7

php script

$Gender  = isset($_POST["gender"]); ' it returns a empty string ? why ?

HTML

<form name="signup_form"  action="./signup.php" onsubmit="return validateForm()"   method="post">
<table> 
  <tr> <td> First Name    </td><td> <input type="text" name="fname" size=10/></td></tr>
  <tr> <td> Last Name     </td><td> <input type="text" name="lname" size=10/></td></tr>
  <tr> <td> Your Email    </td><td> <input type="text" name="email" size=10/></td></tr>
  <tr> <td> Re-type Email </td><td> <input type="text" name="remail"size=10/></td></tr>
  <tr> <td> Password      </td><td> <input type="password" name="paswod" size=10/> </td></tr>
  <tr> <td> Gender        </td><td> <select name="gender">
  <option>                Select </option>    
  <option value="male">   Male   </option>
  <option value="female"> Female </option></select></td></tr> 
  <tr> <td> <input type="submit" value="Sign up" id="signup"/> </td> </tr>
 </table>
 </form>

This is my php script

  <?php
  $con     = mysql_connect("localhost","root","");
  $fname   = $_POST["fname"];
  $lname   = $_POST["lname"];
  $email   =  $_POST["email"];
  $paswod  = $_POST["paswod"];
  $Gender  = $_POST["gender"];
  mysql_select_db("homepage");

  if(mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SELECT Email FROM users WHERE Email = '$email'",$con)))
  {
  echo "userid is already there";
  }
  else
  { 
  $sql= "INSERT INTO users (FirstName, LastName,Email,Password,Gender)
  VALUES
  ('$fname','$lname','$email','$paswod','$Gender')";

  if (!mysql_query($sql,$con))
  {
  die('Error: ' . mysql_error());
  }
  echo "created";
  }
 ?> 

Please help me with these. I have to get the selected index value in the PHP.

I have read this link to use <select> tag in PHP.