In a item-select a ionic icon

ionic-v1
1

Hi!
Do you know a way how i can use a ionic icon instead of a text at an item select ?
Looks like this:

<label class="item item-input item-select">
                <div class="input-label">
                    Gender
                </div>
                <select>
                    <option>
                        Male<i class="radio-icon ion-male"></i>
                    </option>
                    <option>
                        Female<i class="icon ion-female"></i>
                    </option>
                </select>
            </label>

I´d like to remove the text “Male” and “Female” and only have the icons to choose.

Thanks